Tilling Roots and Seeds

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Tilling Roots and Seeds

A cooperation project between Ars Electronica (AT), KILOWATT (IT), Universitat de Barcelona (ES)

Tilling Roots and Seeds is an international cooperation project between Ars Electronica (AT), KILOWATT (IT), University of Barcelona (ES) and Quo Artis (ES) as lead partner and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. This project builds upon the lessons learned through the EU funded project Roots and Seeds XXI. It further expands the capabilities and opportunities of the

EU creative sector to contribute to fight the biodiversity crisis and the environmental degradation of our times and opens up opportunities for artists to collaborate with the scientific and farming sectors to imagine future sustainable scenarios.

30/10/2025

🌾🤝 After two years of collaboration "Tilling Roots & Seeds" draws to an end — a journey that has unfolded through a rich constellation of workshops, exhibitions, residencies, a summer school, and publications connecting art, science, and agriculture across Europe.

Co-funded by the European Union through and carried out in partnership with .art, .bo, , , and , the project was coordinated by . Together, we have cultivated spaces of exchange where artists, scientists, and farmers reimagined the cultural, ecological, and technological dimensions of cultivation in an era of climate and biodiversity crisis.

🔚 To mark this conclusion, we present “Everybody Should Be a Farmer”, a bilingual (Spanish–English) publication that gathers the voices and practices of those rethinking how we grow, care for, and coexist with the living systems that sustain us.

🍊 Inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka’s philosophy of natural farming, the book reflects on how artistic research can prompt reflection on current agricultural systems.

🌱 With contributions from:
The artists who were selected for the project’s residencies and production grant: .harris, , , , as well as: , , , .g.andujar, , Nacho Peres , Surinye Olarte, Sofía Castiñeiras, , .mathieu, , Agustín Iriart, , Dr. Paco Calvo , Dr. Joan Rieradevall , Marie Deschamps , , and .

🎨 Graphic design:

📗 Available to download for free — link in bio👆

💚 A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who made this project possible — the artists, scientists, farmers, institutions, communities, and all the roots and seeds 🌱 that have nurtured this collective journey, sowing ideas, knowledge, and care along the way.

02/10/2025

👀🔙 Looking back at our participation in this year, we are grateful for the meaningful exchanges, collaborations, and encounters that unfolded.

One of the highlights was the “Synthenesis” workshop by artist and designer , developed within the Tilling Roots & Seeds Production Grant Program.

🦠 This participatory session — the second held during the two-year project — invited participants to build DIY aquaculture bioreactors, cultivate spirulina, and produce algae-based pills, while reimagining new relationships with food, care, and collective empowerment in times of ecological uncertainty.

💊 The workshop was fully booked and warmly received, showing how art and science can come together to propose alternative futures and foster practices of sustainability.

🙏 We thank all participants, partners, and collaborators who made this possible !

01/10/2025

🚨📖New Publication!!
Introducing “The Vegetable Garden: Identity, Diversity and the Preservation of Cultural and Natural Heritage” — a bilingual Catalan–English volume exploring gardens as cultural and ecological spaces.

Produced by the University of Barcelona ( ) within Tilling Roots & Seeds, this richly illustrated, bilingual Catalan–English volume explores the vegetable garden as more than a place of cultivation: a living space where biodiversity, cultural memory, creativity, and sustainability converge.

Through case studies in Vilassar de Mar’s Hort de la Xinesca and Caldes de Montbui’s Hortes de Baix, the publication highlights how traditional botanical 🌿knowledge and ecological art practices can foster new cultural and environmental narratives.

✏️ Contributions include ethnobotanical research by Teresa Garnatje and Joan Vallès (), artistic explorations by Jo Milne (.milne), and reflections on art–science collaboration by Eva Figueras and Mar Redondo ().

📘 Published by Edicions MMV (July 2025) | ISBN: 978-84-09-71433-9

📚 Available now as a 🆓 download on the project’s website & [link in bio]🔝

15/09/2025

🙏 A HUGE thank you to everyone who joined us on September 6th at POSTCITY, Linz, for the "Tilling Roots & Seeds Town Hall Meeting" as part of Festival.

🎤This public conversation brought together artists, curators, and project partners — including partners Nicoletta Tranquillo & Silvia Girardello from .bo .art and and Helena Pérez Guerra from , as well as participating artists: , , and .harris — to reflect on the intersections between art, agriculture, and community.

🌱 Together, we shared stories and methods developed in dialogue with farmers, scientists, and local communities across Europe, opening space to explore rural knowledge, ecological transition, and the artistic rituals that guide us in shaping the future of food systems

This Town Hall Meeting also marked a special moment: the wrap-up public event of the two-year Tilling Roots & Seeds project, an international cooperation initiative led by Quo Artis and co-funded by .eu

Thank you for helping us close this chapter — and for being part of a growing network of practitioners and change-makers!

📷All images. Courtesy of

07/09/2025

🔔 Today is the last day to experience “Ritual Device for Fungal Humus” 🍄 by (ES) — developed through the Tilling Roots & Seeds Residency in Spain, in collaboration with urban and peri-urban agricultural organisations.

🌱 The work reflects on what it means to interact with and care for healthy soil in shaping the future of agri-food systems. Fungi — indicators of biodiversity and interspecies collaboration — are cultivated in a garden device that transforms their blooming into sound. Visitors’ touch and presence on the surrounding soil become part of this evolving soundscape, merging fungal rhythms with human gestures.

👂 By inviting us to listen and perform, the piece proposes a form of synaptic empathy: reimagining the future through art, fungi, and collective care for the ground beneath our feet.

🔖 Credits
Residency program:
In collaboration with , , Món Sant Benet – , and
With the support of , Dept. of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and Barcelona City Council

Collaboration:
Concept & Art Direction: Santiago Morilla
Production: Tilling Roots & Seeds (.eu ), , Dept. of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, Barcelona City Council
Physical Computing & Software: Joaku de Sotavento & Fernando Fernández
Soundscape Design: Santiago Morilla & Joaku de Sotavento (Vocals: Coco Moya)
Hardware Design & Construction: Santiago Morilla, & Nicholas Burridge

📍 | POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)
🗓 Unitl 07.09.25
🌿 Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”

03/09/2025

🫛 "Town Hall Meeting: Art, Soil, and Community"
Join us at for a conversation & networking session with the main protagonists of the .eu project Tilling Roots & Seeds.

🗣️ Artists and organisers will share their experiences collaborating with local farmers, scientists, and communities across Europe. Together, we will discuss artistic methodologies, rural knowledge, and ecological transition — and connect with a growing community of change-makers.

👥 Participants
Nicoletta Tranquillo (IT)- .bo .art
Silvia Girardello (IT )- .bo .art
(IT/DE)
(ES)
(IT)
.harris (DK)
Helena Pérez Guerra (ES) –

📍 POSTCITY, First Floor, Town Hall (co-hosted by CIFRA)
🗓 Saturday, 6 September 2025
⏰ 15:00 – 16:30
🎟 FREE / No Ticket | Max. 30 participants
✅ Registration recommended (drop-ins may be accommodated)

02/09/2025

📌 SAVE THE DATE!
🦠 “Synthenesis Workshop” by

💊The "Synthenesis" workshop is a participatory extension of Fara Peluso’s ongoing research on spirulina microalgae, imagining a near-future scenario where individuals can cultivate spirulina as their own food source.

🔧The workshop focuses on building a DIY aquaculture bioreactor and synthesizing algae pills. Participants will explore ways to promote collective practices of care and decision-making connected to well-being and empowerment, and consider how to integrate these practices into daily life.

📍 POSTCITY, First Floor, Workshop Space
🗓 Wednesday, 3 September 2025
⏰ 15:00 – 17:30
👥 Max. 15 participants — Registration required

🔖 Credits

The "Synthenesis" workshop (2025) is developed in the context of the Tilling Roots & Seeds Production Grant Program 2023–2025, in collaboration with and — an international cooperation project between (AT), .bo .art (IT), (ES) and Quo Artis (ES) as lead partner.

Co-funded by .eu

01/09/2025

🌱 “Plant Exposures” by .harris (DK) — developed through the Tilling Roots & Seeds residency at , mentored by .bo .art.

🌾 The project responds to biodiversity loss and soil depletion caused by industrial agriculture by exploring the intricate relationships between soil, plants, and humans. Using low-toxicity analog film and photographic processes, Harris reimagines agricultural landscapes by positioning overlooked weeds as collaborators and indicators of soil health.

📷 Plants and microbes are invited into the image-making process through direct contact with light-sensitive materials and hand processing with plant-based developers. These encounters—shaped by time, temperature, and chemistry—embrace unpredictability and resistance, highlighting more-than-human agency 🪱.

"Plant Exposures" asks how interspecies collaborations can reshape our understanding of agriculture, and through its analog aesthetic of contact, opens up new ways of perceiving beings and traces often beyond human perception.

🔖 Credits:
🍃 Concept and Art Direction: Emma Harris
All images: Courtesy of Emma Harris.Music composed by Tomas Gubbins .
On display this week !

🌿 Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”
🗓 September 3–7, 2025
📍 POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)

30/08/2025

🏔️“Rituals | The Mountain of Advanced Dreams”by

Mali Weil were recipients of the Tilling Roots & Seeds Residency in the agricultural farm .rifugiore_esistente in Italy . The workstey will present at are part of the long-term umbrella project "The Mountain of Advanced Dreams".

This research-based artistic process critically explores Interspecies Diplomacies ( ) : how to imagine new relationships with other living and non-living beings and with the territories we share.

📹 At its centre is the two-channel video Rituals, divided into three parts — three ceremonial acts around body, language, devouring, death, and dreams. Alongside the film, objects, performances, publications, and the nomadic “School of Interspecies Diplomacies” and “Werewolfish Studies” create fictional yet functional spaces where philosophical, scientific, and speculative approaches converge.

This process of worlding becomes a legal and imaginative experiment: bridging past and future, human and more-than-human, knowledge and ritual, to shape new ecologies.

👉 Discover “Rituals | The Mountain of Advanced Dreams” at Festival 2025 — Theme Exhibition PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous.
🗓 September 3–7, 2025
📍 POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)

📷Images credits - All images: Courtesy of Mali Weil:
(1-3) Video stills from "Rituals | The Mountain of Advanced Dreams" (2023)6-channel installation.
(4) Image from the series Flags (2024)
(5) Video still from "Worldsongs - Research" the work carried out in Monte Sole .rifugiore_esistente (Bologna)
(6) Presentation evening of their research carried out during their residency at Serra Madre .art

29/08/2025

🍄 "Ritual Device for Fungal Humus" by (ES) — developed through the Tilling Roots & Seeds Residency in Spain, in collaboration with urban and peri-urban agricultural organisations.

🌱At its core, the project reflects on what it means to interact with and care for healthy soil in shaping the future of agri-food systems. Fungi — indicators of biodiversity and interspecies collaboration — are cultivated in a garden device that transforms their blooming into sound. Visitors’ touch and presence on the surrounding soil are integrated into this evolving soundscape, merging fungal rhythms with human gestures.

👂By inviting us to listen and perform with soil, the work proposes a form of synaptic empathy: reimagining the future through art, fungi, and collective care for the ground beneath our feet.

🔖 Credits
Created within the residency program of the project, developed in collaboration with , , Món Sant Benet – , and .
With the support of Quo Artis Foundation , the Dept. of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and the Barcelona City Council.

In collaboration with and

🍄 Concept and Art Direction: Santiago Morilla
Production: Tilling Roots & Seeds project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU, supported by Quo Artis Foundation, the Dept. of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and the Barcelona City Council.
Physical Computing & Software: Joaku de Sotavento & Fernando Fernández
Soundscape Design: Santiago Morilla and Joaku de Sotavento (Vocals: Coco Moya)
Hardware Design & Construction: Santiago Morilla, & Nicholas Burridge

Pop by to see it!

🌿 Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”
🗓 September 3–7, 2025
📍 POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)

28/08/2025

🦠 “Synthenesis” by — developed through the Tilling Roots & Seeds Production Grant — will be presented in the Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”, curated by Manuela Naveau, at Festival 2025.

💊“Synthenesis imagines a near future where people cultivate Spirulina algae as part of their everyday lives, integrating it into domestic spaces and rituals. At its centre is a living machine that produces edible Spirulina pearls through a process adapted from molecular gastronomy, echoing the dual intelligence of the human body—the cerebral and the intestinal.

Constructed from glass tanks, soft robotics, and bioplastic membranes, the installation sustains algae cultures while activating spherification processes. In doing so, it explores how living machines might influence future relationships between humans, technology, and more-than-human life.

❓ Ultimately, it raises a key question: How can food systems be reshaped through DIY biology, participatory practice, and speculative design?

Come discover "Synthenesis" at Festival 2025 and experience how art, science, and design converge to reimagine our food futures 🥗

27/08/2025

📢SAVE THE DATE!!
We are excited to share the closing milestone of Tilling Roots & Seeds, a .eu project that we have co-created and nurtured together over the past two years.

This September, the outcomes of the program will be presented at Festival 2025 in Linz (Austria) through an exhibition, a Town Hall Meeting, and the launch of our project's publications.

🌿 Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”
🗓 September 3–7, 2025
📍 POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)
Curated by Manuela Naveau

🎨 The four artists awarded the Tilling Roots & Seeds Residency and Production Grant will present their works within the Theme Exhibition, which reflects on political, technological, and ecological forces that generate collective fear, while opening a space for reflection and transformation:

🔹(2) “Plant Exposures” — .harris (DK)

🔹(3) “Ritual Device for Fungal Humus. Everyone should be a musician, a dancer, and a fungus farmer (at the same time)” — (ES)

🔹 (4) “Rituals | The Mountain of Advanced Dreams” — (IT)

🔹(5) “Synthenesis” — (DE/IT)

💡The Tilling Roots & Seeds project's partners are : .bo

🙏 A BIG THANK YOU to the generous collaboration of the artists residencies hosting organisations in Spain:
and in Italy: .rifugiore_esistente

Join us in Linz for this final chapter 🔚

Adresse

Bahnhofsplatz 12
Linz
4020

Webseite

https://tillingrootsandseeds.eu/, https://rootsandseedsxxi.eu/

Benachrichtigungen

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