I Congress of Art, Culture and Science: Inhabiting the Future – Biennal B

MUSIMBI KANYORO

The former president and executive director of the Global Fund for Women (GFW), Musimbi Kanyoro (Mogori County, Kenya), will participate in the Congress with the keynote address on human rights, equality and global leadership.

GHADA AMER

Ghada Amer (Cairo, 1963) is a key figure in contemporary art whose social and activist practice offers a critical reflection on gender roles, the female body and sexuality. Her work articulates identities that straddle East and West through historical research and material experimentation. From a committed perspective, her work reinterprets contemporary art as a space for resistance and social transformation.

ALASTAIR FUAD-LUKE

Alastair Fuad-Luke is a transdisciplinary facilitator, educator and activist addressing societal, ecological and political issues. Between 2011 – 2021, he was professor of Emerging Design Practices at Aalto University, Finland, then Design Research at the Free University of Bolzano, Italy. Returning to Portugal he curated the Porto Design Biennale 2021, Alter-Realities: Designing the Present and is co-artistic director for Carreiros para Futuros Ancestrais, a cultural project in the Alto Minho. His latest books include Post-normal Design, 2022 and Field Explorations, 2022.

FERNANDA FRAGATEIRO

Drawing thematically on 20th-century modernist art and architecture, the artist Fernanda Fragateiro (Montijo, Portugal) repurposes already-existing and culturally-layered material in order to fashion new works that are criss-crossed by an intricate web of inner references to art theory, architectural history, feminist discourse and political revisionism. She has exhibited at institutions such as the Museu Serralves, the IVAM or the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

SANTIAGO BERUETE

Santiago Beruete is anthropologist and holds a doctorate in Philosophy. For three decades he has lived on the island of Ibiza, where he combines his teaching and research with literary creation. His books Jardinosofía; Verdolatría; Aprendívoros; and Plan(e)ta: un trozo de tierra, are the fruit of a cross-pollination between literature, gardening, philosophy and education. The garden, as a visual metaphor for a good life and a symbol of a cultivated mind, presides over this series of works, to which a new title, Filosíntesis (Spirituality and Philosophy from the Garden), will soon be added. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Chinese, and Arabic.

CARLOS GARAICOA

Carlos Garaicoa (La Habana, Cuba) has developed a dialogue between art and urban space through which he investigates the social structure of our cities in terms of their architecture. He employs a multidisciplinary approach to address cultural and political issues through the study of architecture, urbanism and history. Among his most recent solo exhibitions are Toda utopía pasa por la barriga, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Gran Canaria and Es Baluard Museu, Palma (2024)

ODILE RODRÍGUEZ DE LA FUENTE

Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente is a biologist, science communicator, and author. Her career combines science and audiovisual storytelling to bring the challenges of conservation, biodiversity, and the climate crisis closer to the broad public. She studied Biological Sciences and Film Production at the University of Southern California and worked in Washington, D.C., at the National Geographic headquarters. In 2004, she founded the Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente Foundation, which she directed for more than fifteen years, and she currently chairs Rewilding Spain. She is the author of Somos naturaleza (Bold Letters, 2025) and titles such as Félix. Un hombre en la tierra (GeoPlaneta).

SALVADOR RUEDA

Salvador Rueda is an urban ecologist, Doctor Honoris Causa, and President of the Urban and Territorial Ecology Foundation. Founder and former Director of the Barcelona Urban Ecology Agency (2000–2020), he is the creator of ecosystemic urbanism and the superblock model, internationally recognised as a powerful tool for urban transformation.

He is the author of influential books and publications, including 503 Superblocks: How to Turn Streets into Squares, as well as Urban Ecology, Ecosystemic Urbanism, Green Book of the Urban Environment, and Barcelona: A Mediterranean, Compact and Complex City. His approach analyses the city as a complex system, integrating urban metabolism, mobility, public space, biodiversity and quality of life. His model has been implemented in Barcelona and is being studied or adapted in cities such as New York, Berlin and Bogotá, among others.

DAVID BAUTE

David Baute is a Spanish film director, producer and founder of Tinglado Film. His work lies at the intersection of cinema, social impact, and the climate emergency, focusing on how environmental changes transform territories and force communities to migrate.

He directed Black Butterflies, a film about climate migration that won the Goya Award for Best Animated Film (2025) and also received the Forqué, Gaudí, and Platino Awards. He is the director of the Canary Islands International Environmental Film Festival (FICMEC).

ESTER PARTEGÀS

Ester Partegàs (La Garriga, Barcelona, 1972) has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally. Her most recent exhibitions include CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2025); Ballroom Marfa, Texas (2024); TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (2023); Palazzo Esposizioni, Rome (2023); Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid (2022); Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2021); Essex Flowers, New York (2021); Pure Joy, Marfa, Texas (2020); Conde Duque, Madrid (2020); The Drawing Center, New York (2019); Museum of the City of New York (2019); Transborder Biennial, El Paso Museum of Art + Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (2018); Whitechapel Gallery, London; Museo MACRO/Depart Foundation, Rome; and the Moscow, Busan and Athens biennials, among others.
She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2025), the 2022–2023 Rome Prize in Visual Arts from the American Academy in Rome, the VI Catalina d’Anglade Award – ARCOmadrid (2023), a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship (2014), a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship (2004) and a Fundación Botín Fellowship (1999), among others. She has been an artist-in-residence at The Chinati Foundation, MacDowell and Open Sessions at The Drawing Center, New York. She has taught at the Yale School of Art, Skowhegan, Virginia Commonwealth University and SUNY Purchase, and since 2016 has been a professor at the Parsons School of Design, New York.
She has been living and working in New York since 1997, and has studios in Marfa, Texas, and Barcelona.

CAROLINA GRAU

Carolina Grau (Barcelona, 1969) is an independent curator specializing in contemporary art organising international exhibitions, projects and events. She has produced several individual exhibitions (Vasco Barata, Phil Collins, Martin Creed, Angela de la Cruz, Muntadas, etc …) and group exhibitions like Making Visible: Anna Barribal and Susan Hiller, Galeria Moises Pérez de Albéniz (Madrid); Another Point of View, La Galerie Noisy-le-Sec (Paris); Duet, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art (Lisboa); Look Again, Tabakalera (San Sebastian); Entre Fronteras / Between Borders, MARCO (Vigo) and Contrabando, Galeria Luisa Strina (Sao Paulo). Grau was the associate curator for the Arquipelago Centro de Artes Contemporaneas (Sao Miguel, Azores Islands) in 2017and co-founder and co-curator of the Biennale of Jafre I – VII (2003 to 2015), Gerona, Spain. She was winner of the open international competition for a curatorial residency and exhibition Another Point of Vue at La Galerie Centre d’art contemporain, Noisy-le-sec, Paris (2010). She publishes in various specialised media and exhibition catalogues.