Crops Refuge: Survival in a Shifting Climate
2025
Crops Refuge: Survival in a Shifting Climate is an artistic intervention by the multidisciplinary collective Epicuro Lab that through a series of participatory workshops, addresses the urgent intersections between climate change, biodiversity loss, and food systems and social memory.
This transdisciplinary project explores how botanical migration and biodiversity loss—both natural and human-driven—affect urban ecosystems and food security.
By engaging migrant communities, artists, and the public, it fosters awareness of biodiversity, promotes regenerative agricultural practices, and supports climate resilience through participatory workshops.
By linking botanical and human migration, Crops Refuge brings to light often-overlooked forms of knowledge—especially those held by displaced communities. The workshops serve as living laboratories where art, ecology, and social justice intersect.
Crop Refuge. Survival in a Shifting Climate receives funding from a Horizon Europe project called VOICE. Through artist-led interventions (ATSIs), VOICE encourages citizen engagement to tackle local and regional environmental challenges effectively.
Workshop Schedule
1. Migrant Herbarium of Affections
🗓 June 10, 2025 | 🕓 16:00–19:00 | 📍MHiC, Sant Adrià de Besòs
This workshop invites participants to bring a crop that evokes a personal memory — a photo, drawing, or piece of produce — to spark dialogue on migration, identity, and food heritage. Led by Epicuro Lab, botanist Iván Pérez Lorenzo and journalist Malinali García, the session blends botany, storytelling, and a collective listening of Recipe Book of Migrant Memory to uncover how crops — like people — carry culture, memory, and resilience across borders.
Participants will also create herbarium cards based on the plants they bring with them, documenting each specimen’s personal, cultural, and botanical significance. These cards will form a collective “migrant herbarium” — a living archive of memory and biodiversity.
2. Wheat, Coffee and Tomato: Three Crops to Understand the World
🗓 June 14, 2025 | 🕚 11:00–14:00 | 📍MHiC, Sant Adrià de Besòs
Led by Epicuro Lab, botanist Iván Pérez Lorenzo and journalist Malinali García this workshops focuses on three global staples, this dialogue and cartography session traces how wheat, coffee, and tomato have shaped — and been shaped by — colonialism, trade, and climate. Participants will collectively map these crops’ global journeys and reflect on how current climate and geopolitical crises are transforming the future of food.
A shared breakfast of pa amb tomàquet and coffee rounds out the morning with reflection and flavor.
3. Regenerative Futures: Soil Sensing
🗓 July 24, 2025 | 🕚 11:00–14:00 | 📍Rubió i Tudurí Gardens, Barcelona
Set in a regenerative garden, this sensorial workshop engages artists, activists, and the public in exploring ecological resilience through art and agroecology. Guided by Epicuro Lab, Marcel·lí Antúnez, and permaculture expert Nacho Peres, the session draws on Emotional Cartography of a Garden to explore soil regeneration, biodiversity, and food security in times of climate disruption.
Collaborators
Malinali García is a journalist and audio producer, experienced in print media and photography, and recently focused on audio documentaries. Her latest project, Recipe Book of Migrant Memory, is a collection of narratives that travel across Latin America through the voices of migrant women, using childhood recipes as a gateway to identity, memory, and dreams. She is also active in social initiatives that promote and defend human rights.
Iván Pérez Lorenzo is a predoctoral researcher at the Botanical Institute of Barcelona (IBB), specializing in the reproductive biology of Asteraceae. His research also covers taxonomy, nomenclature, and invasive flora. He combines scientific rigor with an artistic sensibility that emphasizes the importance of marginal plants and non-human perspectives. His work has been featured in scientific journals and artistic forums, earning multiple awards.
Marcel·lí Antúnez Roca is internationally recognized as a leading figure in electronic art and stage experimentation. A pioneer in mechatronic performances and interactive installations, he was a founding member and leader of La Fura dels Baus. Over the last three decades, his work has been exhibited in over 40 countries and received numerous awards, including the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona and Ars Electronica's Honorary Mention. Since 2010, he has focused on l’Arsenale della Apparizioni, a body of work that includes performance, film, and the methodology he terms Sistematurgia.
Nacho Peres is a farmer specialized in sustainable methods, with experience in organic, biodynamic, and regenerative agriculture. He currently works as Head of Permaculture at the Ferrer Foundation, where he promotes farming practices aligned with environmental sustainability and social impact.
Ferrer Foundation’s Green for Good initiative entrusts him with the technical direction of projects based on regenerative social agriculture, where he applies the ethical and technical values he has developed through his experience.
Activities
