About

Project

Our water-based environments are facing major challenges. We are all individually and collectively responsible for their protection and health. This requires altering our relationship with our rivers, seas, and oceans, through systemic changes in our lifestyles and politics.

The Blue Genes community are people who share a common concern about the state of our oceans and who want to develop ways to increase connection and engagement with the marine environment, via the Arts & Sciences.

Goals

The Blue Genes community met for the first time on October 27th, 2022. This first exploratory online workshop was a bottom-up way to share ideas about increasing peoples’ connections with our marine ecosystems. Four main needs were collectively agreed upon and they became our goals.

New Rituals

Find new collective rituals to connect with the ocean. A platform of sensorial practices of knowledge that aim to increase peoples’ connection with the oceans.

Share knowledge

Apply innovative techniques to share knowledge and raise awareness. Create a safe space to share innovative ideas, projects or initiatives that will make a difference, while the platform helps to bring marine conservation goals to a broader public.

Methodologies & Tools

Share practical skills, tools and strategies to create a source of innovative case-studies and successful initiatives through useful methodologies, tools and strategies.

Interdisciplarity

Find new ways to learn together with a strong interdisciplinary network of arts & sciences. Create a community based around design and art to foster marine sciences by finding collaborators, sharing knowledge or research to share a passion for nature.

CM-CSIC and BAU are two institutions that began collaborating in 2022 due to the belief that there is a need to act urgently to help counter the various threats to the world's oceans and seas in a collaborative way, for the sake of humans and nature itself.

Both institutions, which are located in the Mediterranean city of Barcelona, are the facilitators of the Blue Genes initiative, a growing community of people from Europe and beyond.

Partners

The Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) is the fourth-largest research institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and is its largest dedicated to marine research. Under the motto “Ocean Science for a Healthy Planet,” the ICM conducts frontier research and fosters both knowledge and technology transfer on topics related to ocean and climate interactions, conservation and sustainable use of marine ecosystems, and impact mitigation of natural and anthropogenic hazards. In-depth knowledge, determined action, and coordinated management are essential to confronting these global challenges, thereby driving sustainable development of humankind.

Josep Lluis Pelegrí

Senior Researcher

Lydia Chaparro

Engagement with the Ocean

Carine Simon

Citizen science, outreach & education

Vanessa Balagué

Scientific Culture

Noemí Fuster

Researcher

BAU, is a Collage of Art and Design located in Barcelona. It is affiliated to the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia, which offers undergraduate, graduate and Phd programs within the European Higher Education System. BAU's mission is to be a driving force of knowledge and innovation at the service of society. It focuses on attention given to students and their global training so that they incorporate the values of respect, equity, social commitment and responsibility towards people and professional rigour. BAU Research carries out its research work as a creative exploration at the intersection of art, science and design. A way to face the challenges of contemporary society through hybrid, critical and imaginative methodologies. Blue Genes is a project by the research unit IMP (Instituto de Materialidades Políticas).

Marina Martínez

Alumni