New Climate Alliances at the Intersection of Art, Science, and Governance: Organismo at COP31

16 November 2026 | 10:00 – 11:00

Photo: Lucas Orozco / TBA21–Academy

The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) will take part in COP31 and include in its presentation a conversation on Organismo and how collaboration among artists, scientists, public institutions, and local communities can support ecological repair. The session will introduce the experimental applied research program’s methodology through one of its case studies: Last Resorts: Cloud Gardens. The panel will feature María José Sanz, Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa, Félix Romero Cañizares and Gary Zhexi Zhang.

Organismo, a program curated and coordinated by María Buey, works with cultural, academic, and civic organizations to develop projects grounded in specific places and the knowledge of the people who inhabit them. The conversation will share tools and approaches to collaboration tested over the past three years, exploring how artistic and scientific research can inform decisions about land use.

Date: Monday, November 16, 2026
Time: 10:00–11:00 a.m., local time
Venue: Spanish Pavilion, COP31, Antalya, Turkey

Developed in collaboration with BC3, with Gary Zhexi Zhang as lead artist, or pulso, Last Resorts: Cloud Gardens investigates how land-use strategies and evapotranspiration—the movement of water from soil and plants into the atmosphere—might help restore water cycles in the Mediterranean. The project will provide a starting point for discussing the potential role of these projects and alliances in climate action.

Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll’s film, presented in the exhibition Tides of Return at Ocean Space through October 11, will also be screened at the Austrian Pavilion at COP31.

ABOUT COP31

The United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place from November 9 to 20, 2026, in Antalya, Türkiye. This annual summit brings together governments from around the world to advance international agreements on emissions reduction, adaptation to the effects of climate change, and climate finance. Alongside the negotiations, its program of events brings together the scientific community, civil society leaders, and cultural institutions to share research and proposals that contribute to these goals.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

María José Sanz

Scientific Director of BC3 and an expert in climate policy, air quality, and carbon and nitrogen cycles. With over 300 publications, her career spans decades of influence in international policymaking. She has held leadership roles at the FAO and the UNFCCC, participating in key Kyoto Protocol negotiations. Since 2001, she has been an active contributor to the IPCC; she was part of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel in 2007, and in 2024, she joined the Task Force Bureau for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Sanz combines scientific excellence, policy influence, and a deep commitment to environmental sustainability and transdisciplinary research.

Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa
Director of TBA21–Academy. Architect, researcher, and curator whose work focuses on the intersection of contemporary artistic practices, critical ecologies, transdisciplinarity, and new forms of environmental governance.

Félix Romero Cañizares

Director of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. Forestry engineer and expert in nature conservation, sustainable management, and public policy development focused on biodiversity, culture, and ecological transition.

Gary Zhexi Zhan

Artist and lead researcher of the working group for the Cloud Gardens Organismo project. His work explores the intersection of technology, ecology, narrative economics, and simulation to develop new methodologies and theoretical frameworks for collective land and climate stewardship.

María Buey
Lead of the Organismo program at TBA21 Academy. Architect and researcher specializing in transdisciplinary design strategies and applied research connecting art, architecture, and environmental sciences to foster ecological repair processes.