HERBART: Art and Science in confluence

Anne-Marie Melster is a curator and art critic. She has made a name for herself in the field of art and climate change, through numerous interdisciplinary art projects with the Artport Making Waves project. Since 2006 he has been collaborating with internationally renowned artists, institutions and companies to raise awareness of the effects of climate change.

Lluís Llobet is the director of the Farrera’s Art and Nature Center, at the Pirineu. During the last 25 years of dedication, he managed the artistic residences for artists and investigators at the Farrera’s center and the different activities that develop. He is also the coordinator of the publication, The ecological crisis of the artistic language.

Carlos Magdalena worked for more than twenty years in Kew Gardens, the botanic garden of London, where his capacity and instinct to rescue endangered species made him win the nickname of “the plants messiah”. The asturian explains his vocation as an obsession to never let any species artificially keep alive species that on a practical level are considered extinct.

Airy Gras Mas holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona and a Master's Degree in Phytotherapy from the Institute of Continuing Education of the University of Barcelona. Specializing in ethnobotany in Catalan-speaking territories, she works at the “Institut Botànic de Barcelona” as a postdoctoral researcher in the EtnoBioFic research group. For her, it is important to preserve the traditional knowledge linked to plants and give it the value it deserves, they are our roots and this defines us as people and as a people to keep moving forward.

José Maria Parreño has been a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid since 2008. He is a member of the group “Climatologías del Planeta y la Consciencia” (UCM), dedicated to analyse and promote artistic creations that increase awareness of responsibility in Climate Change. He is also the director of the Master's Degree in Artistic Historical Heritage Management, dedicated to the training of professionals in this field.

Miguel Sbastida is a visual artist. He works in sculptures, video installations and performances. In his works, he investigates the geopoetics of matter and environmental processes through ontological, scientific, ecocritical and posthumanist perspectives.

Paula Bruna is both an environmentalist and an artist. From this dual perspective, she uses artistic research as a form of knowledge where different disciplines hybridize. In recent years, she has been researching the shaping of the Anthropocene narrative from a non-human point of view, through a combination of science, fiction, and art.

Marc Talavera holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona. Specializing in ethnobotany, agroecology, forest ecology and scientific dissemination. President of the Eixarcolant Collective, the organizing body of the Gastronomic Day of the Forgotten Plants and which works on the recovery of edible wild species and traditional agricultural varieties as a tool to transform the agri-food model.

Mercè Compte has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. In 2003 she obtained a diploma in advanced studies from the Department of Sculpture at the University of Barcelona. As a researcher, she specialized in the study of historic gardens and, in particular, those of the early and mid-twentieth century, within the Noucentisme.

Daniel Vitales holds a PhD in Biology and a Degree in Environmental Sciences, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Botanical Institute of Barcelona. It belongs to the research groups "Biodiversity and plant biosystematics and plant diversity, genome evolution and ethnobotany.

ORGANIZATION:
Eva Figueras
Teresa Garnatje
Pep Herrera
Mar Redondo
Joan Vallès