Yesterday, March 10, the first session of the interdisciplinary Pyroecologies conference was held at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), where the Pau Costa Foundation played a fundamental role both in the organization and in active participation.
Pyroecologies is part of the Organismo | Arte en ecologías críticas aplicadas programme, 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), the Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra del BSC-CNS and the Pau Costa Foundation (PCF). A collaboration that offers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into the study of fires from an interdisciplinary perspective and to encourage the exchange of knowledge between artists, scientists, managers and civil society.
The scientific conference brought together experts from various fields to allow attendees to analyse the role of fire in the Earth system, understanding its multiple and often contradictory roles in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and in society.
Lina Teckentrup, Elisa Bergas-Massó and Joan Llort, from the Department of Earth Sciences at BSC, addressed the role of fire in the global carbon cycle. Elsa Pastor, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, addressed the challenges of fire in the urban-forest interface, while Pepa Morán (ETSAB-UPC) and Isa Riera (PCF) spoke about the relationship between fire-landscape and fire-biodiversity, respectively.
Social and scientific communication aspects were also addressed by Albert Soret (BSC) and Raúl 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 completed with a visit to the BSC supercomputers and a space for discussion with the participants of the Pyroecologies case study, which included a talk by the curator and director of the Disseny Hub Barcelona José Luis de Vicente on anthropogenic noise pollution in the ocean, thus establishing a connection with the sea.
The day is part of a week of activities in which participants from Organismo will visit Barcelona and the Catalan community to learn about the management and research of the previous work. Some of the planned activities are 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 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 Ramats de Foc (Fire Flocks) project of the PCF.
After this week, the group of Organismo participants will work on all the content and material collected during the different meetings to develop a performative translation of the research carried out at the Organismo public event, scheduled for June 20, 2025 at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, as well as a digital presentation on the platform. TBA21 on stage.
