The collaboration explores the study of fire from an interdisciplinary perspective and foster knowledge exchange between artists, scientists, managers, and civil society
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) hosted on 10 March the interdisciplinary workshop Pyroecologies which brought together the research and cultural sectors. The event is part of the programme Organismo | Arte en ecologías críticas aplicadas, an experimental initiative promoted by TBA21-Academy and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in collaboration with the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT), BSC and the Pau Costa Foundation (PCF).
Building on Llort's recent research assessing the impacts of large fires on the ocean, the scientific day sought to rethink the role of fire in the Earth system, understanding its multiple and often contradictory roles in terrestrial and marine ecosystems and society. During the session, several experts addressed the issue of fire from different scientific and applied perspectives. Lina Teckentrup, Elisa Bergas-Massó and Joan Llort, from the BSC’s Earth Sciences Department, addressed the fire’s role in the global carbon cycle. Elsa Pastor, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), discussed the challenges of fire in the wildland-urban interface, while Pepa Moran (ETSAB-UPC) and Isa Riera (PCF) talked about the intertwined relationship between fire-landscape and fire-biodiversity, respectively.
Social and SciComms aspects were also addressed by Albert Soret (BSC) and Raul Marcos (Universitat de Barcelona, UB), who presented their contribution to the MEDEWSA project on risk communication, Kathleen Uyttewaal, from the European PyroLife project, discussed the role of addressing fire with local communities, and Helena Ballart (PCF), together with Mia Morante (PCF), described the education and art projects led by their foundation. The day was rounded off with a visit to the BSC's supercomputers and a discussion with the participants of the Pyroecologies case study, which included a talk by the curator and director of Disseny Hub Barcelona (DHub) José Luis de Vicente on anthropogenic noise pollution in the ocean, thus establishing a connection with the sea.
The PyroEcologies workshop is part of a week of activities in which Organismo participants will visit Barcelona and the Catalan region to learn about the management and investigation of previous work. Some of the planned activities include a visit to an area burned during the summer of 2024 in the Priorat region accompanied by the head of the Grup d'Actuacions Forestals (GRAF) of Tarragona, Ricard Expósito, and the fire ecology expert Pere Casals from the Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC), and a meeting with Dani Giraldo, a shepherd who is part of the PCF's Ramats de Foc (Fire Flocks) project.
This collaboration is a unique opportunity to deepen the study of fire from an interdisciplinary perspective and to foster the exchange of knowledge between artists, scientists, managers and civil society. After this week, the group of Organismo participants will work on all the content and material collected during the different encounters to develop a performative action of the research carried out at the Organismo public event, scheduled for 20 June 2025 at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, as well as a digital presentation on the TBA21 on st_age.
