CREATIVE
AGENCY
Sustaining Culture & Creativity
in the Age of Intelligence
October 7-9 2026
ATHENS, GREECE
With the support of:
CREATIVE
About the event
Over three days, across the city of Athens, we will share insights into how to claim our own and our collective agency, coming from academics, designers, artists, technologists, thinkers, and doers, including 100 representatives of creative hubs from across Europe!
Through an inspiring and creative program, we urge you to explore the sense of control you feel in your life, your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior, and your faith in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks and situations. Definitely a feeling that seems increasingly elusive nowadays, especially for us working in the precarious, somewhat intangible fields such as culture and creativity.
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CREATIVE AGENCY
Sustaining Culture & Creativity in the Age of Intelligence
The notion of AGENCY seems especially relevant today. Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. Having agency refers to a person’s sense of control over one’s own life and decisions. In a reality which seems more unreal than ever before, we are left wondering…
Where are we at?
Do we still have any agency left in us?
As creative agents, can we instil direct control and guidance over our own actions and their outcomes, or is this less and less true with each new week, day or hour, in which information and events overflow and flood each other?
Having agency seems to be a feeling we increasingly struggle to get a hold of. And probably shared by anyone living through the galloping and elusive global shifts, rapidly changing events and realities. Especially us, those already treading across an inherently wobbly terrain of exploring what are utterly human needs – culture, creativity, expression and connection.
A hot buzzword in the critical theory circles over the past few years, agency carries even more weight and speculation today, tangled up within an intricate web of “artificial agents” and those “real” ones (us!). The artificial ones are the very agents many among us are consciously building and feeding, using daily, talking to or creating together with. As we thrive to get a grip on it, they’ve already moved on, two steps ahead.
Some years ago, many researchers and scientists claimed that in the face of emerging technologies, machine learning and artificial intelligence, it is the creative professionals who will be the most resilient ones, most sought after. That creative and strategic thinking will be as in demand as any tech skill out there, if not more.
What we seem to be facing now, or very very soon indeed, is questioning the very sustainability of many of our creative professions. For the sake of faster delivery, increased productivity and uncompromised shareholder payouts.
So.
Where are we at?
Do we still have any agency left in us?
This year’s BAUTOPIA actually focuses on the topic of sustainability. But this time, it will be treated with a slightly different edge. Yes, environmental challenges are here to stay, and we don’t feel we’ve made much progress. We are experiencing some “de-growth”, but unfortunately it is happening in the realms of common sense, rational thinking and human compassion and empathy, which are all becoming scarce. Complexity is increasing, as we struggle to sustain even the basic levels of our existence, let alone our environment and the planet we are consistently letting down.
Under the title CREATIVE AGENCY: Sustaining Culture & Creativity in the Age of Intelligence, creative hub managers, CCSI stakeholders, artists, creative professionals, students and the general audience will explore sustainability not only from the environmental standpoint, but also the sustainability of creative professions in the face of multiple crises, the technological challenges posed by the use of AI in creative processes, and the impermanence that many creative professions will be facing in the period ahead of us.
Through an inspiring and creative program, we urge you to explore the sense of control you feel in your life, your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior, and your faith in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks and situations. Definitely a feeling that seems increasingly elusive nowadays, especially for us working in the precarious, somewhat intangible fields such as culture and creativity.
Over three days, we will share insights into how to claim our own and our collective agency, coming from academics, designers, artists, technologists, thinkers, and doers, including more than 100 representatives of creative hubs from across Europe.
Welcome to BAUTOPIA!
Each of ECHN’s annual events, whether a meetup, conference, or a festival, is co-hosted by one of the network’s member hubs. This year’s BAUTOPIA is hosted by BIOS in Athens, Greece, which also serves as the base of ECHN. BIOS is a cultural organization that actively shapes the conditions for contemporary cultural production, creating spaces where new ideas, practices, and communities can emerge, operating across a network of interconnected venues, which also include Romatso, Plex and Latraac. For BAUTOPIA 7, this distributed infrastructure, along with contributions from other Athens-based ECHN members and key cultural institutions, will become the living framework for three days of critical discourse, artistic programming, and peer-led exchange.
With the new festival format, ECHN will align with a wide range of partners in the hosting city, and produce a number of satellite programs and events, thus attracting both the professional and the general audiences. Expect inspirational keynote lectures from some of the leading creators, researchers and managers, as well as a multitude of panels, workshops, participatory sessions, performances, exhibitions and a specially curated music & arts sub-program titles SONOTOPIA.
Featured Artists & Speakers
Vladan Joler
Artist / Director
Share Lab
Meta Štular
Director of Strategic Development and Programmes
Center ROG
Simone Rebaudengo
Founder and Creative Director
studio OIO
Henriette Waal
Designer / Artist
Igor Simić
Artist & Creative Director
Demagog Studio
Jeremy Morris
Architect / Co-Founder
Fahrenheit Works
Silvia Brandi
Director
FarmLab.at
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Vladan Joler
Vladan Joler
Artist / Director
Share Lab
Vladan is the co-founder of Share Foundation and Sharelab, as well as a distinguished professor of arts and design from Novi Sad, Serbia. Over the past few years, his collaborative projects with Kate Crawford gained critical acclaim, with their ground-breaking Calculating Empires research and exhibition being awarded the Silver Lion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2025. His work blends critical and system design, data investigations, counter-cartography, data visualization, and numerous other disciplines, and is included in the permanent collections of the MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Design Museum in London and the Rijksmuseum in Twenthe, as well as in the permanent exhibition of the Ars Electronica Center.
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Meta Štular
Meta Štular
Director of Strategic Development and Programmes
Center ROG
In Slovenia, Meta Štular led the creation of one of Europe’s largest hubs for sustainable design and manufacturing – Center ROG in Ljubljana – which earned her team the Eurocities Innovation Award. For over 20 years, she specializes in social innovation, public space regeneration, and building sustainable creative ecosystems. Her expertise includes stakeholder engagement, strategy development, participatory design, and the implementation of transformative cultural programs. She will be sharing with us Center ROG’s stories of sustainable approaches to maker culture, and innovative ways of nurturing creative communities.
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Simone Rebaudengo
Simone Rebaudengo
Founder and Creative Director
studio OIO
Simone Rebaudengo is the co-founder of studio OIO, where his research focuses on exploring the implications of living with networked and somewhat smart products that change, grow, and are intelligent enough to make their own decisions and show a point of view. His works have been published internationally in Wired, Fastcompany, The Atlantic and Designboom, and he has won two 2014 IXDA Interaction Awards for “Addicted Products”, and a 2015-2016 Internet of Things Award for Best Design Fiction for his “Ethical Things” project, to name just a few.
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Henriette Waal
Henriette Waal
Designer / Artist
Henriëtte Waal is an artist and designer known for her interdisciplinary work in artistic research, environmental design, and community engagement. She is the artistic leader of Veenweide Atelier and the co-founder of Atelier LUMA, the bio design lab of LUMA Arles in the south of France, focused on bioregional practices and material engineering. She is author of Water Works (Waal & Driessen, Valiz, 2025), a book that positions water infrastructures beyond the mere technical, and explores ecosocial design approaches to freshwater challenges through collaborative, place-based practices. Henriëtte has led fieldwork in Mediterranean wetlands, collaborating with remote wetland communities. Combining a system-level approach with embodied practice, her work spans co-fabrication systems for beverages, footwear, colors, crafts, and spaces, as part of an ongoing search for new ecosocial balance. Her projects have been exhibited internationally, highlighting her dedication to social and environmental resilience.
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Igor Simić
Igor Simić
Artist & Creative Director
Demagog Studio
Igor Simić blends fine art, cinematography, video games and music into a thought-provoking transmedia entity, developed somewhere between New York and Belgrade. He is the co-founder and creative director of Demagog Studio which, among other things, produces video games with an eco-critical angle. In 2022, his visual art was featured as part of Manifesta 14, while his video game “The Cub” was in the official selection at Tribeca Film Festival. Igor fuses lecture, cinema, art and performance into a unique format. His performative lecture Everything is Content will give us a provocative look at the impact that the ubiquity of platformized content has on our daily lives.
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Jeremy Morris
Jeremy Morris
Architect / Co-Founder
Fahrenheit Works
Jeremy Morris is an English, South African and Swiss architect and visual artist. Traveling along with his camera, analysing the built environment and witnessing different contexts as a result of his multicultural background. He created a social and environmental awareness that drives him in his projects. Fahrenheit.works (also operating as Fahrenheit 180º) is an architectural collective and design studio founded by Jeremy and Portuguese-Swiss architect Luca Carlisle. Based in Lisbon, Portugal, they focus on regenerative architecture, ecological design, and building with alternative, earth-based materials. Their headquarters are based in Lisbon, Portugal.
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Silvia Brandi
Silvia Brandi
Director
FarmLab.at
Silvia Brandi is an architect, cultural manager and co-founder of FarmLab, a rural creative hub in Southeast Austria that combines traditional crafts, digital fabrication and nature-based practices. Originally from Italy, she spent almost twenty years in Barcelona working at the intersection of architecture, education, innovation and culture. Her previous roles include faculty member and General Manager at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), Director of the international Fixing the Future Festival, and Director of Educational Projects at Abacus Cooperativa.
Today, Silvia develops artistic residencies, workshops and international collaborations at FarmLab, exploring how creativity, local resources and emerging technologies can contribute to more resilient and regenerative futures. Her current work focuses on the relationship between making, learning and the seasonal cycles that shape rural life.
WHO IS BAUTOPIA FOR?
CCSI PROFESSIONALS
Hub managers, cultural operators, curators, stakeholders, activists… Join the conversations about some of the burning, but also the emerging challenges and topics within the European creative and cultural space. Get inspireds and connected to your peers, build new alliances, constellations and initiatives!
ARTISTS, CREATORS & STUDENTS
If you are a creator and maker, in the broadest sense, we can assure you that you will get inspired, learn about new methodologies, have a chance to work alongside leading European creators from the fields of sustainable design, arts, music, video games and many other fields. Explore our hands-on workshop and discourse program.
THE GENERAL PUBLIC
With our new festival format, we are not only addressing the “professionals from the sector”. Everyone is invited and welcome to explore our exciting artistic interventions, sustainable design exhibitions. creative guided tours, site-specific installations and, last but not least, the special SONOTOPIA music program of concerts and parties.
KEYNOTES
WORKSHOPS
EXHIBITION
ARTISTIC INSTALLATIONS
PANELS & PARTICIPATORY SESSIONS
CREATIVE GUIDED TOURS
FILM SCREENINGS
BOOK LAUNCH
SONOTOPIA MUSIC PROGRAM
About us
European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) is a peer‑led network of more than 300 hubs from 50 countries across Europe, and 100+ active members. Its mission is to enhance the creative, economic and social impact of creative hubs in Europe and the neighbouring countries.
ECHN contributes to the reinforcement of the CCSI’s capacity to operate transnationally and internationally, connecting professionals, disseminating ideas and advocating on key sectoral issues.
