The twelfth edition of the Przemiany festival, for which Architecture&Business has patronage, is fast approaching. Curator Rafał Kosewski tells us who will appear at the Copernicus Science Center, what the speakers will discuss and what attractions we will find at the festival.
Wiktor Bochenek: This is another, the twelfth edition of the transformations festival. How has the festival and its themes changed over this time?
Rafał Kosewski: The Festival of Transformations came to Copernicus from the Vistula River, so to speak. The event, which grew out of grassroots city initiatives, was at first an artistic and social event. Its overarching goal was an attempt to bring the river back into the cultural life of Warsaw. Since 2011, when the Copernicus Science Center became the organizer, the festival has slowly evolved, naturally building on the knowledge and skills of our staff. The transformation has become a festival of science, art and new technologies, where the main reflection today is on various scenarios of the future. However, we focus on the future we get in the present. In other words, we notice and analyze the changes around us that may affect our lives in the future. Every year we choose a different field for reflection. So far we have discussed the Anthropocene, life extension technologies, space colonization, artificial intelligence, the future of food and energy policy for the next decades, among other topics.
The theme of this year's festival is Grow a City
photo: Copernicus Science Center
Wiktor: This year's theme is the slogan "Grow a city for yourself." Where did you get the idea for such a slogan and what does it mean?
Rafal: This year our reflection on the future focuses on cities and their various forms of adaptation to climate change. We chose the slogan, Grow a City, to emphasize the importance of the symbiosis of urban areas with the natural environment. However, it's about much more than blue-green infrastructure - a concept that has already settled into the public debate. The vision of the future we have in mind is based on the need for a fundamental change in the approach to the design, management and cohabitation of cities (I emphasize - cohabitation, because cities cannot be created solely for human needs). Instead of building, we need to start growing. To grow is, first of all, to take care of the right conditions for growth and the free circulation of matter and energy. Grow a city is a look at a city from the perspective of its mosaic of microclimates, where every element counts - from gated centers full of skyscrapers, to parks, so-called wastelands, cemeteries, allotments or suburban wetlands. How does the wind blow in such diverse spaces? Which surfaces heat up quickly? Where to look for coolness on hot days? After all, all of this affects our well-being and our sense of settling into an urban ecosystem.
Grow a city is also a descent into the microscale - a metropolis of ants, bees, bumblebees, and thousands of species of microorganisms to which we literally owe life. In just one square meter of Warsaw's lawn live nearly four thousand jumpingtails, more than eight thousand vascular worms, and about 650 parechnids. Supported by bacteria and fungi, among others, these animals, like a huge factory, convert organic matter into mineral substances assimilable by plants, which ensures soil fertility and thus positively affects the oxygen balance of the city. Therefore, for our own good, it is necessary to create the right conditions for these and other organisms to live - clean soil, water and air, adequate humidity and temperature. The challenges of our age, dictated by the climate crisis, make it necessary for architects and urban planners to acquire the knowledge and experience of ecologists and atmospheric physicists, or at least they should work closely with them.
In addition to lectures, the festival will also feature exhibitions, concerts and film screenings
photo: Copernicus Science Center
Following the contemporary trends ofnature-based solutions, the Festival of Transformation creates a vision of cities as sanctuaries of biodiversity, managed with the support of modern, energy-efficient technologies. And, importantly, built with biodegradable, environmentally friendly materials, based on the cradle-to-cradle idea. Such cities don't have to be a utopia. According to our special guest, Thomas Rau, architect and founder of Amsterdam-based RAU Architects and Turntoo studio, every building is a potential storehouse of materials. The architecture of the future should therefore function like the natural world, where buildings, like plants, are created from ecological materials, and when their useful life is over - they are decomposed into basic parts from which new buildings can "grow". It is therefore worth growing cities.
Wiktor: The"Transformation" program is not only panel discussions, but also side events. What can we expect?
Rafal: We have prepared a very rich and diverse program. We open the festival on October 7, Friday evening at 7 p.m. We will traditionally begin with a lecture, where there will be no shortage of surprises. The special guest will be the aforementioned Thomas Rau, an architect who promotes the principles of circular economy and low-carbon architecture, and the originator of the so-called material passport for buildings. After the lecture, enjoy the opening of the exhibition and workshop spaces and a musical performance by Patryk Zakrocki titled Le Corbusier's Shower.
This year, the heart of the festival will be Doświadczalnia - a space where, in addition to artistic works and projects in the field of architecture and design, there will be temporary workshop stations, prepared with the support of the biological laboratory of the Copernicus Science Center. They will tell, among other things, whether we will illuminate cities in the future with bioluminescent organisms, and what the urban microbiome is and what we can learn from slugs, bees and ants to effectively administer public space. The Experimental Room will also show works dedicated to urban wetlands and water architecture, an innovative design of a spherical wind turbine, as well as such bold architectural ideas as an ultra-thin mesh that acquires solar energy and allows insects to safely pass over the highway. Also on view will be the multimedia exhibition Code of the City, presenting a digital unveiling of metropolises managed by algorithms today.
festival of Transformations
photo: Copernicus Science Center
An opportunity to deepen the issues, related to sustainable development, climate change adaptation and biomimicry in architecture will be, as you mentioned, panels and lectures. Saturday's expert panels, prepared in cooperation with A&B, will focus on passive construction and innovations in sourcing renewable energy sources in cities. And on Sunday, together with the Centrala design studio and their guests, we will talk about urban microclimates.
This year we will also test our idea of short, energy debates, which we have titled Versus. Devoted to utopian urban design, the debates are based on a formula whereby participants divide into two groups: for and against the presented concept, and try - similar to the British House of Commons - to convince each other of their reasons. I encourage you to participate, as it will be a lot of fun and an opportunity to meet interesting people.
Personally, I'm looking forward to Sunday's lecture by Dr. Matthew Lutz, an architect and biologist who studies the architecture of social insects such as the legionary ants of Panama and Australian termites. How these animals organize their communities can help us design more sustainable and climate-responsive architecture, as well as help program robots and systems to live in extreme environments such as deserts or even the surface of Mars.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday there will be a film review, prepared by the Wroclaw Film Foundation, organizer of the MIASTOmovie festival. We will see, among others, Journey to a Green Utopia - a story about a family that tries to put pro-environmental demands into practice by moving to a permaculture farm. The screening of Reinventing the World will take a fresh look at the concept of circular economics, and the film Experimental City will explore the attempt to create, back in the 1960s, a zero-emission city in the United States. Meanwhile, an example of a successful urban planning project such as CopenHill in Copenhagen (a combined heat and power plant, waste incinerator and ski slope at the same time) will be presented in the film Making a Mountain. The program also includes an internationally acclaimed documentary filmed from the point of view of stray dogs living in the Turkish capital, Istanbul Without a Leash, subtly showing the animal perspective of life in the city.
festival allows you to spend time actively
photo: Copernicus Science Center
We also invite you to the festival cafe, which will host daily tastings and meetings with local food producers. There we will talk about how to return to traditions, regionality, sourcing from green spaces and forests, and whether we will be able to feed our cities in the future.
All the events are free, but will last only three days, from October 7 to 9. It is therefore worth reserving this weekend for a visit to the Copernicus Science Center. Especially since we will specially open one of our permanent exhibitions, titled The Future is Today, for the guests of the festival.
Rafal: The festival will be accompanied by concerts in the planetarium by Karolina Rec-Resina, who combines cello with simple electronic instruments and sparing vocal parts during her performances. The concerts will be accompanied by visualizations under the planetarium's dome, inspired by the metamorphoses of urban space. The effect will be spectacular!
Wiktor: Who is the festival addressed to?
Transformations is for all seekers and questioners. For those firmly on the ground, as well as those rocking in the clouds. Lovers of new technologies and those interested in art. I'm sure there will be something for everyone in our program this year, whether you are 15+, 35+ or 85+. Above all, the transformations are meant to unite - different specialties and different generations. We invite world-renowned experts, showcase innovative projects, and discuss often difficult and serious topics, but we do it in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, using simple language. Because this is the only way to come to change - when we trust and understand each other.
Victor: Thank you for the interview.
Festival of Transformation
photo: Copernicus Science Center
