In October 2020, the President of the European Commission announced the launch of an ambitious new initiative linked to the Union’s ecological transition plan: the New European Bauhaus (NEB). In the words of Von Der Leyen, the NEB is defined as “an interdisciplinary project that will create experimental spaces in which art, culture, science, technology and society can meet to imagine and test new solutions.”
Three years later, the NEB has become a vibrant movement that catalyzes an investment of 250 million euros – with 120 more annually allocated for the next 3 years -, 750 organizations involved, and more than 200 institutions participating at the local level, national and European.
The contribution of culture and the arts is key to producing new social imaginaries; stories of change that contribute to the ecological transition and digital transformation. Rethinking our relationship with citizen communities, energy, food production, the shape of cities and mobility, algorithmic decision-making systems… will require not only political regulation and technological and industrial development. Radically reimagining the parameters of our daily lives, and creating new spaces for experimentation and new institutions that are capable of addressing these systemic problems, is just as essential.
Methods based on artistic practices, combined with scientific and technological research, can reveal possible futures to come and open new paths to achieve them. Today the impact of new creative methodologies extends beyond the space of culture, and they are helping to shape the prototypes of sustainable products, services and policies of tomorrow in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, the circular economy and the design of sustainable buildings and cities.
The new alliances between science, technology and the arts sponsored by the New European Bauhaus, are at the center of the creation of public value, putting the power of technological and scientific advances at the service of the fight against the current polycrisis, defined due to the climate emergency, the energy transition, inequalities and wars. We need exercises of imagination and action that help us transition from a linear extractive petroeconomy to a smart circular bioeconomy.
During the NEB Festival held this week in Brussels, we have been able to bring together within the “Archipelago of Possible Futures” initiative some of the most relevant actors and institutions that work at the intersection of Culture, Arts, Science, Technology and Ecology. The objective is to open a dialogue with policy makers in Brussels to include this territory in the future EU innovation agenda.
Artists like Cooking Sections are helping us imagine a “climavore” diet for a world where we must ensure food security, while dramatically reducing carbon emissions from food production. 2023 STARTS Award winner Daisy Ginsberg is designing gardens that take into account not only the needs of humans, but also those of pollinating insects, which are at the base of the biodiversity pyramid.
In the architecture space, there is an explosion of experimentation to reduce the enormous impact that construction has on CO2 emissions, from effectively and imaginatively reusing elements of demolished buildings, to replacing concrete with new biomaterials made with salt, corn or mushrooms. Barcelona has been a world leader in innovating in new forms of public space and social housing, such as the Superilla project or the housing cooperatives developed by LaCol. Also in technological policies, such as the creation of urban data commons and tools such as Decidim Barcelona.
The New European Bauhaus does not emerge from nowhere. For decades, the EU has been the world leader in producing hybrid spaces for collaboration between arts, science, technology, ecology and society: art and technology festivals, art and architecture biennials, “hackerspaces” and manufacturing laboratories. digital, digital art museums, artist residency programs in laboratories and technological research centers, art and culture foundations that promote interdisciplinary research.
This archipelago of organizations has no equal in any other region on the planet. Unlike the American or Chinese innovation models, EU innovation policy has implicitly recognized the natural relationship with culture as one of its fundamental characteristics.
2024 is a milestone in this trajectory. The end of the mandate of the current EU Commission and the beginning of a new one after the June elections is a key moment to evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of this model. It is essential that the rich “Archipelago” that emanates from the hundreds of experiences of the last 10 years, in the form of art and technology residencies, pilot projects, interdisciplinary collaborations becomes the basis to shape and define a new vision, more ambitious and most impactful for the next decade of EU research and innovation policies.
Francesca Bria, senior advisor of the New European Bauhaus.
José Luis de Vicente, director of the Design Museum and artistic director of Design Hub Barcelona.
