We present the projects selected in our 2021 calls

With the arrival of September and the start of the new school year, we welcome fifteen new Sustainable Food and Citizen Art projects that we will accompany from now on to build a better future in the face of the climate emergency and the social justice crisis.

Every year, the Foundation launches our Sustainable Food and Citizen Art calls to support projects that work towards the transformation towards a more ecological, fair and inclusive society from our own lines of work and sharing our values. Our vocation is to walk hand in hand with agents who promote innovative solutions, offering them not only financing but also long-term support that allows them to continue growing to achieve their sustainability over time and thus be able to achieve their objectives.

The 2021 calls have received more than 200 applications: specifically, 155 proposals have been submitted to Compose knowledge and 83 to From the field to the pantry. These projects, which come from all over Spain, include multidisciplinary approaches, the ability to involve a plurality of local actors and the leading role of science in catalyzing social transformation.

Promoting access to sustainable food through collective entrepreneurship

The food transition towards new models of production and consumption is a feasible and high-impact solution when it comes to facing challenges such as climate change, the sustainability of ecosystems and the depopulation of rural areas. For this reason, with the call From the field to the pantry we have sought to promote the development of collective projects for the transformation, preparation and/or distribution of food products, which facilitate the leap in scale of agroecological food and ensure the economic sustainability of local producers. This call has incorporated the learnings acquired in the 2019 edition of Shared Workshops, but expanding its scope to include on this occasion initiatives for logistics and food distribution, as well as transformation and preparation.

The selected projects have been:

• The Neopaisano workshop – Kikiricoop Sociedad Cooperativa Asturiana
• Consolidating the Madrid Km0 cooperative logistics centre, a proposal for the leap in scale of the agroecological sector – Madrid KM0 Sociedad Cooperativa Madrileña Logistics Centre
• Ecologistics: strengthening the agroecological marketing, distribution and production ecosystem of Extremadura – ACTYVA Cooperative Society
• Eco-local Merindades – Asociación Alimenta Merindades
• A neighbourhood, cooperative supermarket: facilitating the consumption of agroecological products in Aragon – Coopolis Sociedad Cooperativa
• Creation of a workshop and a shared logistics and transport system for the valorisation of forest fruits and other agri-food products of a forest nature – APROTER, Association for the Territorial Promotion of El Royo
• Collectivizing the transformation and marketing of legumes and other grains in organic production to make it possible to supply the current demand in communities and other platforms in Navarre – HAZIALDEKO
• Multiplication, transformation and placing on the market of traditional varieties of Andalusian cereals for the contribution to Food Sovereignty and the fight against climate change – Shared Action Group (GAC) Serranía de Ronda

Interdisciplinary approaches to imagine and build other possible futures from art

In a year like 2021, we see even clearer, if possible, the need to build networks of collaboration and shared learning, which maintain and strengthen bridges between people at a time when physical isolation has been inevitable. We firmly believe in the possibilities that artistic practice can have in this regard, generating spaces for meeting, empathy and dialogue.

Composing Knowledge is a call with a deep-rooted trajectory within the Foundation, given that this is its fourth edition and that it is convened both in Spain and in France. These years accompanying projects developed in different contexts have shown us the wide possibilities offered by artistic practices to hybridize knowledge and activate citizens.

The transdisciplinary approach in these practices contributes to hybridizing knowledge to activate citizens in the face of complex challenges such as the climate crisis and social justice. From the perspective of art, science and society, the projects selected in this call imagine a more sustainable future by addressing the eco-social challenges of the present through creative approaches.

The selected projects have been:

• 150 chairs and several urban halls – Cultural Foundation of Architects of La Rioja
• From imbalance to shared dreams. Creating sustainable future narratives – Feitoría Verde Sociedade Cooperativa Galega
• Cultivating Cultures: Hop Ecologies – Carrizo de la Ribera Town Hall
• You live in an Agricultural City! – La Fragua/The Forge Association for the Arts in the Rural Environment
• Nomadic Pluriversity – Nomadic Pluriversity Association
• noise ê – ARTEA Research and scenic creation
• Solar.NetHUb (SNH) – Kräken.Labs

An enriching selection process for jurors and applicants

Each of the proposals received for both calls has been examined in detail and evaluated by a team of experts in each of the two fields, going through different phases: review of the project by the pre-selection team, pre-selection meeting, instruction phase – external evaluation of the project – and, finally, decision by an independent jury. The projects that are not finally selected receive a detailed response indicating the reasons why they have not passed the process and the strengths that have been identified in their proposal, thus obtaining valuable feedback with which to rethink and strengthen their project for other possible calls.

We are very happy to announce that we are starting to walk hand in hand with these inspiring projects, starting an enriching process of mutual learning. We have full confidence in the potential of all of them to function as a lever for change, as well as to stimulate greater collective mobilization around them around their objectives. The first step, as usual every year, will be a virtual Kick-Off Seminar at the end of October in which we will welcome these new projects, get to know each other better and promote synergies between each other.

Here begins a collective path on which we will share experiences and results of our work together with each of these transformative initiatives that, from Sustainable Food and Citizen Art, will expand the ways of imagining a sustainable and better nourished future. We are convinced that all of them will grow and consolidate, thanks to a process of accompaniment and shared knowledge from which they and us, society and the planet will benefit.

Image credits: Automanufacturers. Composing Knowledge 2017