Smart Agri-Cultures for Sustainable Futures

Productivity and efficiency in agriculture are necessary conditions for economic development in the periphery, but also for ensuring food security for the generations to come.

Agriculture has one of the biggest environmental footprints, while it is also among the first fields impacted due to the climate crisis. The cost of modernizing production lines along with low productivity makes it difficult for smaller farmers to survive. This can lead to increasing inequalities in land ownership and new forms of exclusion. The need to strengthen the food system’s resilience and sustainability is more urgent than ever.

Onassis Stegi and MADE present “Smart Agri-Cultures for Sustainable Futures,” a two-day forum that includes talks and panel discussions, as well as an introduction to best practices and initiatives at the nexus of arts, technology, science, and agriculture.

Agriculture provides numerous opportunities and will be critical to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for a sustainable future. In an era that combines modern technologies, AI, and data to optimize existing agricultural activities and the growing demand for agricultural goods, plant and animal products such as food, natural textiles, but also wood for construction and even paper products, the agricultural economy itself faces major challenges (need for continuous innovation, volatility of markets and consumption trends, climate change, natural resources, risk of brain drain from rural areas).

We explore Earth's uncharted territories: the future land as space, place, production, nutrition, empowerment, future work, decentralization, and inspiration. The need for collective consciousness and balance between natural resources, emerging technologies, environmental policies, and creativity as a lens of enlightenment and imagination, highlights the possibilities of agriculture through regional innovation, knowledge production, the arts, and the sciences.

The conference program features lectures, interdisciplinary dialogues, and panels.

Program

Kickoff Event S+T+Arts Forum: Smart Agri-Cultures for Sustainable Futures, 17:00-18:30 ΕΕΤ

17:00 – 17:15 | Introduction to S+T+Arts Forum (Onassis Stegi & MADE Group)

17:15 – 17:40 | "The Architecture of Metabolism", Lydia Kallipoliti, architect, engineer, and scholar

How can architecture produce food, and be eaten away? How can we define the architecture of metabolism? This talk seeks to reveal how architecture constructs, distributes, and leverages power via material upcycling, interspecies alliances, biopolitics and excremental processes. It maps and redraws the affinities of the built environment as a product of many forces, translated in the tensions between products and by-products, production and consumption and, finally, creation and decomposition.

17:40 – 18:00 | "The plant intelligence plan", Zhang Tianyi, ecological artist

Based on plant intelligence research, the Plant Intelligence Plan recognizes the initiative and rights of plants. The plan uses biotechnology tools and materials to restore the ecological relationship between humans and commercially-bred crops and animals, which humans have alienated, while also exploring sustainable agricultural pest control. By restoring these ecological relationships, the work proposes an improved value system that goes beyond anthropocentrism.

18:00 - 18:20 | “Co-creation with plants through the artistic practice”, María Castellanos, artist, postdoc researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University

Τhe talk will focus on Castellanos’ artistic research about the secret language of plants. Maria Castellanos has spent over ten years developing complex systems that promote the communication and understanding between humans and nonhuman beings. ‘The Plants Sense’, a project developed as a result of a Vertigo STARTS residency, was a defining moment in her artistic practice. ‘The Plants Sense’ is an interactive garden in which various sensors measure the electrical oscillations of the connected plants and display their biochemical reactions to human presence and their environment. Plants may provide us with knowledge and information that we do not yet understand, but this may help us formulate new questions.

18:20 - 18:30 | Q&A, Networking

S+T+Arts Forum: Smart Agri-Cultures for Sustainable Futures

The S+T+Arts Forum will take place on 19-20 November with a physical presence at the Impact Hub Athens, Karaiskaki 28, Athens 105 54, Greece

09:30 – 10:00 | Arrival

10:00 – 10:15 | Opening & Welcome – MADE Group

10:15 – 11:00 | Keynote talk: «Kiss the Ground: Regenerative farming», Larry O’Connor, founder and CEO of Other World Computing and Board Member of ‘Kiss the Ground’ organization

In this talk, Larry O'Connor will take us on a journey of film development and production, as well as the processes between technology, regenerative agriculture, and Green IT. “Kiss the Ground” is a full-length documentary shedding light on a “new, old approach” to farming called regenerative agriculture, a practice with the extraordinary ability to balance our climate and feed the world. A revolutionary group of activists, scientists, farmers, and politicians band together in a global movement of "Regenerative Agriculture" that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

11:00 – 12:30 | “Motivating Sustainable Futures” Workshop, Q&A, Costas Bissas

12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch Break

13:30 – 14:30 | Panel Discussion “The Future: Digital Transformation & Smart Agriculture”

Speakers:

-Petros Kavasalis, Dean of the School of Engineering at University of the Aegean

-Theofilos Papasternos, Business Manager at Compellio, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, University of Luxembourg

-Zisis Tsiropoulos, CEO, AGENSO

-Thanos Karvounis, Innovation Manager, SmartAgroHub S.A.

-Petros Kartsimadakis, Project Lead, Trofý.Lab

Moderator: Mantalena Kaili, Founder of MADE Group, Cofounder of the European Law Observatory on New Technologies-ELONTech

14:30 – 15:30 | Panel Discussion “Culturing policies for a creative sustainable model”

In order to develop novel sustainable models, the human capacity for creativity requires access to existing culture, knowledge, and information. Everyone can contribute on different scales to the production of culture, values, and policy. What are the policies that encourage initiatives for the three pillars of sustainable development, resilience, and social cohesion, and how do they function as communication channels?

Speakers:

-Spyridon Kouvelis, Director, Eplo Institute for Sustainable Development // Senior Associate, University of Cambridge CISL // UNEP Senior Advisor, Eplo Institute for Sustainable Development, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership; University of Cambridge, UNEP

-Dr Konstantinos N. Baginetas, Secretary General of Agricultural Policy and Management of European Funds of the Ministry of Rural Development & Food of Greece

-Katerina Gkoltsiou, President, IFLA Europe (International Federation of Landscape Architects)

-Yiannis Melanitis ‘Phyto-Bit Manifesto’, Artist, Theorist and Associate Professor, Athens School of Fine Arts

Moderator: Matina Kanaki, Manager of MADE Group, Secretary of the Board of Governors of NGO KEAN-Cell of Alternative Youth Activities, Independent Consultant for Sustainable Development

15:30 – 16:00 | Networking

09:30 – 10:00 | Arrival

10:00 – 12:30 | Talks “Disciplinary narratives & best practices”

How do different branches of knowledge come together? What is the interplay between art, science, and technology? In this session we will explore narrative perspectives through the lens of practice, research, and innovation through a series of talks.

Speakers:

- "Grow Your Own Film Seed Festival," Hypercomf, artistic collective

- “Data Gardens – From the Cloud to the Earth," Kyriaki Goni, artist

- "Anthos: An immersive art installation designed by artists and scientists, based on biodiversity and complex systems," Yiannis Kranidiotis, artist

- "Hydrousa," Dimitris Kokkinakis, cofounder of Impact Hub

- "The journey of STARTS4Water in Sifnos," Amalia Zepou, social innovation advisor, cofounder of Kollektiva

12:00 - 12:30 | Keynote Talk: “Oceans in Transformation—Sensible Zone,” John Palmesino, Territorial Agency

We need to think about oceans and land as interconnected. ‍The thin layer, the area between –200 meters and +200 meters, is the most important component of the Earth System, where the trophic chains connecting areas make chlorophyll photosynthesis possible, which is necessary for the complex processes of regulation of life on land. The sensible zone is the thin, yet vast site of carbon capture and of the life flows and fluxes of climatic homeostasis. It reaches deep into the waters until light can activate photosynthesis, and well above sea level into the mountains, valleys, and ridges of terrestrial life. It is a zone of accelerated and slowed recycling of materials, minerals, energies, trophic upwelling, life. And it is a sensitive zone that is susceptible to rapid variations from small perturbations.

Moderator: Christiana Kazakou, Researcher at i-DAT.org (UKRI-AHRC), Producer & Curator for S+T+Arts Regional Centers, MADE Group

12:30 – 14:00 | Screening of the documentary “Kiss the Ground” & Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00 | Cross Sectoral Exchanges

This is an open space with a project speed dating approach, yet an informal and high-energy social activity where the participants will have the opportunity to share practices, projects, and ideas that can foster dialog across disciplines in the arts, sciences, technology, industry, and research.

15:00 – 16:00 | S+T+Arts Forum: Perspectives for Sustainable Futures

At the forum's conclusion, participants are invited to reflect on the future via their field of knowledge and practice, culminating in cross-sector and creative disruption. Interactive Q&A.

Moderator: Yannis Rizopoulos, Journalist

Smart Agri-Cultures for Sustainable Futures is organised by Onassis Stegi and Made Group in the context of the regional S+T+Arts centers program, of the S+T+Arts european commission initiative.

S+T+Arts

S+T+Arts is an initiative of the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. S+T+Arts was launched in 2015, following up on the findings of previous activities funded by the European Commission, namely ICT&Art 2012, FET-ART, ICT ART CONNECT 2013, and ICT ART CONNECT study, whose results demonstrated the worldwide emergence of communities of hybrid collaborations among science, technology, and arts, and their relevance.

MADE Group Co

MADE Group is a non-profit platform for communications strategy, social innovation projects, and creative synergies. Culture and innovation, ecology and sustainability, democracy and inclusivity, resilience and progress are their inspiration and guidelines in their works. Social innovation is about creating ideas and solutions for change; creativity is about becoming inventive through synergies and interactivity while having high standards of aesthetics for every strategy or accomplishment. MADE team is a group of experts, professionals and scientists, who provide the opportunity for training, experimentation, and a high level of commitment to alumni and young professionals.