The festival that redefines our relationship with the environment
is back!

The Larnaka Biodesign Festival (LBF) is an initiative and now an annual institution of the Larnaka 2030 organization in the context of the strategic development of the city’s artistic program towards the green transition. The festival is based on multi-thematic axes that have as a common thread the redefinition of our relationship with the natural environment and everything that falls within it. LBF’s strategic partner is Petrolina.

As a term, biodesign refers to methodologies and collaborative practices that are not limited to innovative technological solutions but derive from social phenomena of coexistence between humans and the biological systems that accompany them. It therefore promotes a sustainable and ecologically fair relationship between people and the natural environment as a place of habitation and as a source of raw materials and economic activity.

The festival is based on participatory actions that give the public the opportunity to co-create significant artistic works with artists from Cyprus and abroad. The ultimate goal is the exchange of academic and empirical knowledge, synthesizing a special anthology of ecopedagogy that stems from the local ecosystem of Larnaka, while at the same time being applied in various places abroad. In this way, the concept of ecology, networks and synergy within and through these networks is redefined, without being limited to administrative boundaries or other perpetuated socio-political ideologies.

The second edition of LBF, building on the strong footprint of the first edition of the program, comes to strengthen people’s psychic links with the natural environment, undermining unconventional divisions that have historically undermined our relationship with nature. We are part of the natural world, we are not distant, nor detached. This new connection will hopefully become the common ground where a new ecological ethic and a new vision of sustainability and fair coexistence will develop.

The festival will host artists, scientists, academics, art groups and performers who will collaborate with farmers, cooks, minority groups, young people and children in an artistic program that invites the audience to explore elements, concepts and habits derived successively, in each thematic week, from the soil, the water and the air.

Coming from the Soil marks the beginning of the program. It is an original construction of an improvised flower garden in the city center, which will be home to beekeeping plants and soil from the greater Larnaka province. The composition will change and will be naturally altered during the three weeks of the festival.

The first thematic week focuses on practices starting from the soil and all that emerges from it. The week will host performances, workshops, and lecture-presentations by pioneering visual artists and researchers in the field, including Dr Joseph Hadjikyriakos, the Pleisure Collective of Sicily, researcher and lecturer Latifa Alkhayat from Bahrain, and students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), curators and visual artists Meera Badran from the United Arab Emirates, Maees Hadi from Iran and Sweden, the actions furthermore will be accompanied by Dr Nikoleta Christodoulou and the children of the School of the Forest, Marissa Satsia and Antonis Tsiabarta, as well as landscape architecture students from the American University of Larnaka.

Heading thematically towards the second week, the festival is expanding geographically, with common ways of coexistence around the dinner table. Students from the leading academic institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will co-create a unique culinary experience in collaboration with Patriko: Indigenous fine dining, exploring concepts of association that break down ethnographic boundaries. Through a series of participatory actions in the public space, the public will be invited to redefine their relationship with the city’s shoreline and appropriate public use, taking into account key development projects of land reclamation, deforestation and reforestation on the island. These events are coordinated by Eisa Baddour from Syria, theater group THEATROLA and the ecological art workshop of Andri Christofidi.

The closing week is about the young people and children of the city. The individual actions are linked to a children’s fairy tale “Sky accumulator” by pedagogue Vasso Panagi, in the form of workshops for ecological constructions. At the closing ceremony, the children will present the revival of the fairy tale in the city center in the form of a children’s parade, which will be curated by the team of visual artists and eco-educators Salomi Paraskeva, Andri Christofidi, Vaso Panagi, and Theodora Andreou.

LBF is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture through the sponsorship program KYPRIA 2024.

Festival curator: Kyriakos Christofides
Production Manager: Theodora Andreou
Graphic Identity: Eugene Gavriel