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Science Friction

In symbiosis

Thinking differently about life

In tandem with the exhibition “Science Friction”, these debates bring together local and international voices from different disciplines to talk about how to generate a new way of looking at life that would enable us to understand the complexity of the crisis that is now affecting the whole planet.

As the biologist Lynn Margulis said, “Life is a symbiotic and cooperative union that allows those who associate to succeed”. The work of this revolutionary scientist has changed our idea of what life is and what its mechanisms are as well as having a great influence in the imaginaries of other fields of knowledge, including anthropology, philosophy, and art. Today, when we are faced with a planet in crisis because of the effects of human exploitation, we are starting to understand that we are part of a delicate ecosystem where all the elements, from bacteria, viruses, and fungi through to plants and animals, are interdependent and essential. Nevertheless, the accumulated dynamics of centuries of understanding nature as otherness, something to be tamed and useful only as a supplier of resources, are still dominant and now, at the height of this ecological emergency, are threatening the future of life.

How can we transform our way of seeing other species and our links with them? What criticisms are appearing of the aesthetic and philosophical paradigms that keep putting humans at the centre of everything today?

This activity is part of Science Friction

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Marta Segarra and Gerard Ortín

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Previous activities

Conversation with Anna Tsing, Victoria Reyes García and Maria Ptqk

Histories of Contamination and Survival

Lecture by Marta Segarra and dialogue with Gerard Ortín

Humanimal Encounters

Lecture by Pierre Charbonnier and dialogue with Ester Jordana

An Ecological Transformation of Ideas

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The Legacy of Lynn Margulis

Screening of "Symbiotic Earth", by John Feldman

The Legacy of Lynn Margulis

Conversation with Margaret McFall-Ngai, Ricard Guerrero and Carme Puche

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