SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY + ARTS
Reflecting on the first South American–European STARTS collaboration
SCIENCE+TECHNOLOGY+ARTS: Lessons Learned from a Decade of European Transdisciplinary Innovation documents and reflects on the legacy of the S+T+ARTS Initiative, a pioneering European program that has, since 2016, redefined the interplay of art, science, and technology as a driver of innovation, cultural transformation, and societal change.
The book reflects on, among other, S+T+ARTS Buen-TEK consortium, the first South American–European STARTS collaboration, which centers ethical, reciprocal, and non-extractive transdisciplinary practices. Grounded in the Indigenous concept of Buen Vivir (Sumak Kawsay / Suma Qamaña), the project embraces ecological balance, pluriversality, and situated knowledge as alternatives to extractive technological paradigms. Buen-TEK proposes rethinking technology not as “high” or “low,” but as context-sensitive, relational, and community-embedded.
A core methodological principle of the project is “de-centering”: recognizing historical and structural asymmetries between European and South American partners and actively creating space for negotiation, multilingual exchange, and epistemic plurality. This led to practical adjustments, including a shared translation budget, a collectively built ethical framework for community engagement, and peer-to-peer learning structures linking artists, scientists, and local experts across ecosystems.
Residencies were redefined as context-driven and community-engaged processes rather than theme-based artistic productions. For example, Jimmy Carillo undertook a residency organized by Alta Tecnología Andina (Lima) and IMPAKT (Utrecht), staying near the Shipibo-Konibo community of Santa Teresita in the Peruvian Amazon. Supported by trans-local expert Josefa Nolta, his work engaged directly with local knowledge and ecological practices.
Similarly, aniara rodado developed her residency in Colombia with Más Arte Más Acción and IMPAKT, focusing on yuca brava, a cyanide-rich Amazonian tuber central to local diets. Her research examined ancestral technologies such as the sebucan, a device used to extract toxins, foregrounding Indigenous ecological intelligence and material knowledge systems.
Through collective writing, shared bibliographies, workshops, podcasts, and community-led selection processes, the consortium continuously recalibrates its methods. Buen-TEK emerges not as a fixed definition but as an evolving practice of learning with territories, ecosystems, and human and more-than-human communities—practicing coexistence as “Earth Beings.”