September 3-7, 2025
We are pleased to announce that the four artists selected for the Tilling Roots and Seeds residency and production grant will present their works at the Theme Exhibition “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”, curated by Manuela Naveau, within the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 in Linz (Austria).
The exhibition addresses the political, technological, and ecological forces that generate collective fear and disorientation, while also inviting us to rethink panic as a space for reflection and transformation. Within this framework, the projects developed through the Tilling Roots and Seeds program engage with biodiversity, interspecies relations, and speculative approaches to sustainable futures.
Exhibited works:
- Ritual Device for Fungal Humus
Santiago Morilla (ES)
A device for cultivating and biosonifying saprophytic fungi, envisioning future systems of biodiversity and sustainable food production. - Rituals | The Mountain of Advanced Dreams
Mali Weil (IT)
A speculative exploration of Interspecies Diplomacies through film, objects, performance, and editorial practices, proposing open world-building with other-than-human beings. - Plant Exposures
Emma Harris (DK)
An analog film project developed with weeds and microbes, highlighting soil health, biodiversity, and the potential of interspecies collaboration to reshape our understanding of agriculture. - Synthenesis
Fara Peluso (DE/IT)
A living machine that synthesizes pearls of Spirulina algae, imagining near-future food systems where individuals cultivate their own nutrient sources as a gesture of empowerment and resilience. - 📍 Theme Exhibition: PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous.
Ars Electronica Festival 2025
POSTCITY, Bunker, Linz (Austria)
About Tilling Roots and Seeds
Tilling Roots and Seeds is an international cooperation project co-funded by the European Union, led by Quo Artis (ES) in partnership with Ars Electronica (AT), KILOWATT (IT), and the University of Barcelona (ES).
The project aims to foster the involvement of the creative community in facilitating the EU’s cultural shift towards a society based on a sustainable food system. It enhances European cultural cooperation and capacity for artistic research and practice around the plant biodiversity crisis and the urgent need for sustainable food systems.
The overall objective of Tilling Roots and Seeds is to discover, regenerate, and narrate the work of farmers in interconnected ways that foster harmony with nature and responsibility towards future generations.
The participation of these artists in the Theme Exhibition at Ars Electronica represents a milestone for the program, bringing their research to one of the most relevant international platforms for art, science, and technology.
In collaboration with
