MadBlue 2021. First edition of the annual Festival of Innovation and Culture for Sustainable Development

Description of project by MadBlue

MADRID GOES TO BLUE. ART, INNOVATION, SCIENCE, THOUGHT...

THEY MEET IN THE CITY TO TALK ABOUT THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET.

WELCOME TO THE CAPITAL OF SUSTAINABILITY

Scientists such as Fernando Valladares, entrepreneurs such as Gunter Pauli –father of the blue economy–, design experts such as Alice Rawsthorn (The New York Times), entrepreneurs such as Carlos González Perandones (CEO of Nationale-Nederlanden Spain), Jorge Villavecchia (director general de Damm) or Javier Goyeneche (founder and CEO of Ecoalf), athletes such as skater Danny León or musicians such as Lucas Vidal.

Artists such as Amparo Sard, Carlos Garaicoa, Patrick Hamilton, Manolo Paz, Isidro Blasco, Nuria Mora, Alberto Baraya, Gabriela Bettini, Sandra Cinto, Christian García Bello, Mona Hatoum, Susana Solano, Baltazar Torres, Françoise Vanneraud and Cinthia Marcelle exhibit.

The Government of Spain, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council are committed to MadBlue so that each year it becomes one of the great events in the city. In collaboration with these institutions, the festival is a private initiative founded by Luis Prieto.

The starting point is the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From them, the most important international meeting on innovation, technology and culture takes place, which takes place in Madrid in the spring of 2021. MadBlue brings together companies at the forefront of innovation, startups with disruptive solutions, creators and speakers from different fields and countries.

Conferences, exhibitions, art installations, workshops, forums...

MadBlue is a festival that seeks to boost the economy of the regions through innovation in multiple sectors of activity. The aim is to achieve sustainable development, smart cities, a circular and ecological economy and investments in new technologies. “There is an opportunity for Madrid to be recognized internationally as the city of sustainability. Other European capitals have their design or fashion week, each year we will have our festival around the new world that we have to create ”, says Luis Prieto, CEO and founder of MadBlue. And he adds, “we have to be able to attract, retain, gather talent in Madrid to turn the city into a meeting point for thought and action. This is our year zero ”.

The three administrations are committed to turning Madrid into a blue city

MadBlue has agreed with the three administrations (State, Community and City Council) to turn Madrid, each spring, into a place for meeting, debate and experimentation around the challenges posed by the United Nations to achieve a more livable planet. It is also a strategic project to recover the economy through investment in solutions and technologies aimed at sustainability.

In his presentation in February, the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida declared that “MadBlue places Madrid as a benchmark city in the field of innovation, sustainability, knowledge and culture; in addition, it deals with issues that are obviously going to determine the future of large cities, not only in the medium and long term but in the short term”.

For his part, Gonzalo Cabrera, the General Director of Cultural Diffusion of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Community of Madrid, explains that “from the Community of Madrid we consider that a forum such as the one MadBlue supposes is not only important but necessary. All the efforts, both those made by public and private institutions, add up to achieving the goal of sustainable development in line with the 17 United Nations SDGs. The fact that MadBlue unites all these actors in Madrid is undoubtedly something valuable that we do not hesitate to support from the outset, as it contributes to consolidating Madrid as a benchmark in the development of sustainable policies”.

The Government of Spain has recognized MadBlue as an event of exceptional public interest.

Private companies have also wanted to join and give their support to this initiative. Brands such as Estrella Damm or Nationale-Nederlanden stand out, which have been linked to MadBlue as sponsors, but also others that have collaborated in the development of the event such as Ecoalf, Candriam, Playstation, Roca, the Camilo José Cela University or the World Tourism Organization.

Also, city institutions that carry in their DNA the commitment to cultural innovation, environmental responsibility and good artistic practices are part of this meeting. Thus, the headquarters of MadBlue 2021 are La Casa Encendida, the Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center, Medialab Prado, the Teatros del Canal and Parque del Oeste.

MadBlue meeting point. The summit

From April 20 to 22, Madrid becomes a meeting point to debate, dialogue, and discover solutions around the future and sustainability. The summit organized by MadBlue and presented by the meteorologist, oceanographer and activist against climate change Mercedes Martín, will bring together names of international experts from different fields, in a mixed format - face-to-face and digital - in conferences and debates.

The New York Times columnist and design specialist Alice Rawsthorn; the biologist expert in climate change and CSIC research professor Fernando Valladares; award-winning musician and composer Lucas Vidal; the paradigmatic economist and entrepreneur Gunter Pauli (author of the book The Blue Economy); entrepreneurs such as Carlos González Perandones (CEO of Nationale-Nederlanden Spain), Jorge Villavecchia (CEO of Damm), Javier Goyeneche (CEO and founder of Ecoalf), Elena Guanter Ros (CEO of Candriam) or Mónica Chao (director of sustainability from Ikea Spain); visual artists such as Rosell Meseguer, Amparo Sard, Patrick Hamilton or Carlos Garaicoa and other agents committed to change such as Manuel Butler (executive director of the UNWTO), Marian de la Morena Taboada (doctor of psychology) or Javier Morales. Public representatives such as Enrique Ossorio (Councilor for Education and Youth and Alternate Councilor for Culture of the Community of Madrid) or Paloma Martín (Councilor for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Sustainability of the Community of Madrid) will also participate in the conference.

A gala to recognize the work for the planet

To close the summit, MadBlue holds a final gala at the Teatros del Canal. In this event, the Madblue Five Oceans Awards will be presented for responsible companies, institutions with a recognized trajectory in favour of sustainable development and individual trajectories characterized by the commitment to MadBlue's values. "The MadBlue gala was created to honour international personalities who have had a relevant impact concerning sustainability," explains Luis Prieto.

The awards will be presented by the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida; the Executive President of Damm, Demetrio Carceller and the General Director of Nationale Nederlanden, Carlos González Perandones. Each winner will receive a work created by Manolo Paz (Meeting of the oceans, MadBlue, 2021), made in blue granite from Bahia specifically for this event.

The winners in this first edition of the Madblue Five Oceans Awards are:

_ Francesca Thyssen and the TBA21 Foundation, for artistic patronage committed to the environment and sustainable development.
_ Javier Goyeneche, for the development of new models of sustainable production and consumption.
_ Jon Kortajarena, for his commitment to environmental activism.
_ ANMUPESCA, National Association of Fisheries Women, for the preservation and sustainable economic development of the marine environment.
_ Gunter Pauli, for his pioneering condition and perseverance in researching, disseminating and promoting the Blue Economy.

The MadBlue 2021 gala will close with a performance by Lucas Vidal (Madrid, 1984). It will be the exclusive presentation of Karma, his new album. The young and award-winning Spanish composer has been awarded, among other prizes, an Emmy for the composition of the ESPN network's theme song for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games and two Goyas. “We all have to support projects like Madblue because of the importance of their purposes. Music is no exception ”, says the musician.

Art for everyone. Installations, exhibitions, meetings ...

“Art and culture are essential agents for change. They have a transformative power to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the fact that there is no specific SDG for culture, it is present in a transversal way in relation to education, in making cities more sustainable and friendly, in rethinking consumption and production patterns or in promoting inclusive societies and peaceful ”explains David Barro, artistic director of MadBlue.

Citizens will be able to enjoy, throughout the city of Madrid, a series of artistic installations, cultural actions and exhibitions that will function as emergency calls by sharing a commitment to diversity, equality, ecology, innovation and a way of being in the world more economically responsible and careful with the environment. Participating in this edition of MadBlue are: Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center, Medialab Prado, La Casa Encendida or the Teatros del Canal, enriching their programming.

Betting on responsible creation and creativity, MadBlue has sought artists capable of projecting the importance of good practices towards sustainable development; in some cases, from the subject and, in others, from the processes. “It is not about labelling. More than “eco” art, it is about the “eco-efficiency” of artistic projects, capable of educating us in new modes of production and introducing us to other topics, ”confesses Barro.

The Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center houses several different facilities. Patrick Hamilton (The Red Greenhouse, 2020), talks about the economy and climate change through a metallic greenhouse whose crystals have been replaced by red methacrylate, generating a suffocating sensation from inside; Manolo Paz (Los mares del mundo, 2019), pays tribute to the oceans by rescuing fishing nets to generate a huge work that reproduces the colors of the waters; Carlos Garaicoa (Broken horizon line, 2021) narrates the relationship between nature and urban space based on a set of felled trees, characteristic of parks, as an example of abused or mutilated nature; Amparo Sard (Breaking the sea, 2021), treats the irreversible environmental consequences with pieces of waste and recycled material until creating a broken sea; the fragments have bright and beautiful faces that hide the waste that the sea swallows in a permanent, sinister way, with terrible consequences of which we do not know their true scope, but which seem to lead us towards individual suffocation, towards collective suicide; Isidro Blasco (There Is No Place Like Home, 2020) reflects on our way of looking at and contextualizing places. It is an accumulation of elements that narrates a personal experience after a catastrophe shared by all of humanity.

In parallel, the same Madrid centre hosts the group exhibition The Perfect Crime. Curated by David Barro, it shows us how our earthly paradise has become a lost paradise, beyond appearances. This kind of shipwreck gives us the dimension of the world, a reality that is cracking and with it utopia, like the cracks in a swimming pool. The perfect crime presents works by Alberto Baraya, Gabriela Bettini, Sandra Cinto, Christian García Bello, Mona Hatoum, Susana Solano, Baltazar Torres, Françoise Vanneraud or Cinthia Marcelle.

The artists participating in the show question what surrounds us and our perception of the world. With them, we understand that in the perfect crime, the crime is perfection itself.

In Medialab Prado, the artist Laura González Cabrera (Quero ver o mar, 2021) makes a pictorial intervention on her windows, generating structures that evoke the rhythmic movement of the sea. Some of them contain words, barely legible, by three poets demanding the viewer attention, time and effort to discover them.

In La Casa Encendida we find an intervention by Nuria Mora (Where is my Mind, 2021) that turns her façade into support for a huge message using the nautical alphabet. A series of awnings located in the windows project other ways of approaching urban art beyond the usual pictorial actions, acting on the historical heritage in an ephemeral and sustainable way in accordance with MadBlue's concerns and responsibility.

Design and company. Workshops, questions and solutions.

The creative and artistic professions employ analytical and critical thinking processes that can positively influence innovation. Thus, at the summit the MadBlue Laboratory was set up, a series of workshops and spaces for dialogue between the world of art, design and business to find imaginative solutions to complex problems. This initiative aims to provide society with tools that allow us to propose new ways of relating to the world and lead a transformation that leads us to a more balanced and sustainable world.

Organized by MadBlue and Medialab Prado, the workshops are directed by Stef Silva, (creative director of Invisible and co-organizer of Speculative Futures Madrid) and by Alberto Barreiro (partner in Transformational Studio, professor at Kaospilot, at Complutense University, IE, Digital Society School ...) and have the theoretical contribution of scientists, economists, cultural managers and other agents concerned about change. Barreiro explains that “the MadBlue Laboratory of Citizen Innovation for Sustainable Development is guided by Design methodologies oriented to Transformation. A methodology that allows us to integrate the challenges that threaten us as individuals, as a society and as a planet in the practice of Design and innovation, projecting our transformative purpose to, from there, materialize this intention in the form of experiences that aim to change our way of being, creating and doing to ensure that the world we leave is better than the one we have found ourselves”.

The MadBlue Laboratory will work with the Nationale-Nederlanden team with the intention of discovering new ways of being, creating and doing as a company that allows reconciling business and positive impact. It is a collaborative and open exercise of innovation that incorporates a critical reflection on the great social and environmental challenges that concern us as an essential component of the process.

Starting from the Nationale-Nederlanden purpose of «helping to take care of what matters most», this trip will explore new ways to make this intention real in the form of meaningful and transforming services and products, capable of helping us take care of what we care about. matters: to others, to our community and to our planet.

The MadBlue Laboratory activities take place at the Medialab Prado headquarters. Here we find the so-called Speculative Design Workshops, aimed at professionals from the business world and developed by designers. These workshops create an innovative scheme to make room for the emergence of new questions. The questioning opens the range of what is possible, a common trait with the critical thought processes of artists. The objective is to explore scenarios that allow us to transform our relationship with the world by rethinking the idea of production and consumption.

The workshop is carried out in two phases: a Zero Phase (“Imagination towards Sustainable Development”), which has allowed participants to investigate and deepen the challenges related to the Sustainable Development Goals and design solutions that provoke critical reflection. These have served to launch Phase One which, in the form of a participatory innovation workshop, allows making ideas, projects and impact solutions tangible, seeking practical applicability for these solutions.

With the Laboratory, MadBlue seeks to place the citizen as the protagonist of the transformation of economic, social and production models. Stef Silva affirms that “the architects of the cathedrals knew that they would not see them finished and that other generations would participate in that construction so that, in turn, other generations could enjoy them. A better future has to be built like those cathedrals and for this we need a generation of citizens, companies and institutions committed to the Sustainable Development Goals. An absolute challenge in the philosophy of MadBlue and its Citizen Innovation Laboratory for Sustainable Development”.

MadBlue 2021 allies

MadBlue has had the support of the three administrations (State, Autonomy and City Council) but also with the complicity of a series of brands without whose support the realization of this project would not have been possible.

Companies and brands have also wanted to join this first edition of MadBlue:

Estrella

The commitment to sustainability has been part of Damm since its inception and is integrated as a strategic part of the company in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by the United Nations.

Under this framework, they have promoted initiatives to minimize their environmental impact, all of them aimed at reducing the consumption of natural resources, generating energy from renewable sources and consolidating the transformation of the production model towards a circular economy model. Day after day, Damm strives to make its packaging more eco-sustainable and, for this reason, they have eliminated the plastic rings from their packs of cans, and have replaced them with others made of 100% biodegradable cardboard. That is why Damm is the best possible meeting point to enjoy MadBlue.

Nationale-Nederlanden

At Nationale-Nederlanden they have the purpose of “helping to take care of what matters most” and, therefore, they support the well-being of people and the planet by actively engaging with the society in which they operate. This goes through the generation of long-term value for all its stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, regulators, suppliers and communities in general. For this reason, Grupo NN is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact and carries out actions that help those who need it most.

Nationale-Nederlanden collaborates with the festival by promoting the MadBlue Laboratory through SparkLab, the Nationale-Nederlanden innovation laboratory.

Brands and organizations championing sustainability and innovation such as Ecoalf and PlayStation also collaborate with MadBlue. World Tourism Organization, Candriam, Camilo José Cela University, Roca, InfinitC or Helpup.

The support of the Madrid institutions has been essential for the celebration of the festival. In this edition, MadBlue has had the support of Medialab Prado, the Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center, La Casa Encendida or the Teatros del Canal, which have served as venues.

It has also had the complicity of Didac, an organization committed to research, the conservation of recent heritage and the knowledge and dissemination of art and design as cultural and industrial engines.

MadBlue has the recognition of AGF (A Greener Festival), The Global Goals and the Government of Spain.