This workshop is designed for adults — creatives, makers, students, and anyone curious about sustainable design and hands-on making. No prior knowledge or experience is required; it’s fully beginner-friendly.

Participants start with a short, engaging session on plastic pollution: how to identify different types of plastic, which ones are recyclable, and the common mistakes that undermine recycling systems. We then demonstrate our Precious Plastic Lab machines in action — the shredder, extruder, and injection machine — showing how plastic waste, mostly bottle caps, is turned into new raw material.

Working hands-on under the guidance of our team, each participant shreds and molds their own plastic to create a small object to take home — made entirely from 100% recycled plastic.

By the end, participants leave with a practical understanding of plastic recycling and upcycling, hands-on experience operating real recycling machinery, and a one-of-a-kind object they made themselves.

This workshop explores creative agency through the lens of storytelling and artistic expression. Participants are invited to reflect on the cultural references, personal experiences, and everyday practices that have influenced their sense of self, and to transform these into a visual narrative through collage, drawing, words, and mixed materials.

Alongside the creative process, the workshop encourages dialogue on how creativity helps us navigate change, build resilience, and create meaningful connections with others.

Rather than focusing on artistic outcomes, the session values the creative process itself as a space for reflection, exchange, and participation. By bringing together people from different backgrounds and disciplines, it creates an opportunity to discover how individual stories can become shared experiences, and how creativity can strengthen our sense of agency in both personal and collective ways.

Join us for a hands-on participatory workshop where design, making, and community come together to create tangible improvements for our shared neighbourhood.

Working alongside fellow participants, local residents, and the TransfoLAB team, you will contribute to the build-up of a real-life community project responding to the needs of the communal garden we share with our neighbours. Depending on the priorities identified by the community, the project may focus on creating spaces for neighbourhood cats, building shaded seating areas, refurbishing playground elements, or developing other small-scale interventions that enhance everyday life.

The workshop is designed for emerging creatives, students, makers, and DIY enthusiasts who are curious about how design can address social and environmental challenges through circular thinking and collective action.

Throughout the process, participants will explore the fundamentals of participatory design, learn how to safely use basic hand-held tools, and discover how reclaimed and discarded materials can be transformed into functional, meaningful, and beautiful community assets. Equally important, they will experience collaborative problem-solving, teamwork, and mutual support while working towards a shared goal.

No previous experience is required. Whether you are new to making or already have practical skills, this workshop offers an opportunity to learn, contribute, and connect while helping create positive change in the neighbourhood.

Welcome addresses

+ More TBA

Keynote

Other Intelligences

Simone Rebaudengo (studio oio)

Artificial Intelligence has become surprisingly boring. Not as a technology per se, but in the imagination and scenarios we have for it. All we seem to be able to imagine and build are hyper-efficient agents, automated and simplified workflows, and frictionless everything. But as AI becomes part of the everyday, beyond corporate office life, what other processes, metaphors and products could we imagine with it? Through some recent work from oio, Simone will explore different vectors for imagining intelligence. From using AI to make products in the most complex possible ways, to putting little worlds filled with agents inside everyday things. A series of experiments, thoughts and alternative visions that look beyond the increasingly narrow idea of what AI is for, and towards what else it could become.

Keynote

Who Gets to Be Intelligent?

Henriette Waal (Veenweide Atelier)

We are living in an “age of intelligence,” in which artificial systems are becoming not only more capable, but more consequential. They reshape the infrastructures and forms of life on which they depend. This talk explores what happens when we understand intelligence as distributed across humans and more-than-human worlds: across water, soil, plants, microbes, landscapes, materials, infrastructures, and institutions. Water Works (Waal & Driessen, Valiz 2025), and projects developed through LUMA and Veenweide Atelier are presented through this prism. Rather than treating nature as a passive resource, these projects ask how design might recognize and work with the agency already present in living and material systems.

Keynote

On the Complexity and Obscurity of the AI Materiality

Vladan Joler (Sharelab)

Artificial intelligence is often presented as an immaterial, autonomous, and almost magical technology. This lecture instead approaches it as a vast material system: a planetary assemblage of mines, factories, data centers, logistics networks, energy infrastructure, human labor, datasets, and algorithmic processes. Drawing on projects such as Anatomy of an AI System, New Extractivism, and Calculating Empires, Joler will examine how critical cartography can reveal these systems and trace the relations among extraction, computation, labor, knowledge, and power. This practice treats cartography not as a complete representation but as a critical interface, a partial instrument for navigating obscurity, exposing hidden dependencies, and making the political and ecological materiality of AI visible.

Each year, members of ECHN summon at BAUTOPIA. A time to reflect, to re-connect, look back at the developments across the network over the past year. No matter if it is a smaller-scale Hubs Meetup, or a full Culture & Creativity Festival as is the case this year, BAUTOPIA is ECHN’s yearly anchor, when important conversations across the borders can take place in person, in an immediate and focused way.

This year the focus will be on matchmaking members for future project opportunities, as well as showcasing the Thematic Clusters operating within ECHN, as well as all other members’ valuable projects and impacts. The session is open only to ECHN’s associate or full members, with the presence of ECHN’s leadership and executive team.

From Periphery to Compass: Learning from Rural Hubs is a participatory workshop from the ECHN Rural Thematic Cluster. Through the ideas, contradictions, and lived experience of everyone present, we’re going to explore what “rural” can mean today. Participants share stories of projects they’ve seen or run in rural creative hubs, then move into a matchmaking market: seeking out the people behind the projects that inspire them and figuring out, concretely, what it would take to replicate them at home.

The session ends with real contacts, concrete routes (P2P exchanges, Erasmus for Entrepreneurs, cluster visits), and a shared sense of what rural creative work can become.

This public, interactive session of the ECHN’s Makerspaces Thematic Cluster brings together makers and people behind makerspaces from across Europe to share concrete projects, practices, and challenges, and explore where their different realities connect. Whether you run a makerspace, work with one, make things yourself, or are simply curious about the movement, you’re welcome to join the conversation.

The workshop explores how creative professionals and creative hubs can sustain their agency in a future shaped by artificial intelligence, environmental challenges, shifting value systems and increasingly uncertain creative careers. Rather than focusing on technological change itself, the workshop invites participants to identify the external forces shaping creative practice today and collectively explore where agency can still be exercised.

At the heart of the discussion is a simple question: What enables creative professionals to continue creating value in a rapidly changing world? Building on this question, participants co-create a Creative Survival Kit, not as a collection of useful resources, but as a framework for understanding the relationships, knowledge, practices, tools and communities that enable creative work to remain valuable, resilient and relevant. The workshop positions the Fashion & Textile Thematic Cluster as a space for collectively imagining not only how the sector can adapt to change, but how it can actively redefine what creates value in creative practice.

Participants of the breakout sessions will reconvene to share findings and align the activities of Thematic Clusters for the coming year. Formation of new Thematic Clusters within ECHN will be discussed, as well as “aob” relevant to the internal dynamics of the network and its activities.

In this hands-on workshop, participants translate short movement gestures into printed video frames, altering them with mixed-media techniques to craft unique animation loops. No prior experience of animation is required from the participants,, but an interest in movement and performing arts is a plus.

Utilising a technique from her own artistic practice, Anna Járai leads participants in exploring their relationship with air through performance-led mixed-media animation. Following a guided embodiment exercise, participants will create 5-second micro choreographies that will be recorded on video. These digitised movements will then be extracted, printed, and translated back into the physical, analogue world frame by frame. Blending medium and message, this tactile process intentionally defies conventional genre boundaries as a subtle political gesture, reclaiming digital media through physical intervention.

In the final phase, participants will deconstruct their printed frames using mixed-media animation techniques, incorporating drawing, writing, and mark-making directly onto the paper. Once altered, the frames will be scanned back into a digital loop. By blending performance, video, and layered animation, attendees will craft unique, fluid visual snippets: moving artefacts of their own personal mythologies.

Who is it for: Open to the general public. No prior experience of animation is required from the participants,, but an interest in movement and performing arts is a plus.

A ceramics-style session where participants shape what they imagine from SeaClay, a material made from oyster shells and algae sourced from the Tagus estuary and from local food supply chains.

SeaClay comes out of A flor do azulejo, a cor do Tejo, our research into tiles formulated exclusively from biomaterials: oyster shells and algae sourced from the Tagus estuary and from local food supply chains. This workshop puts the material directly into participants’ hands. It works like a ceramics session, except the clay is made from shells that would otherwise go to landfill. Participants mix their own batch, pigment it and shape it freely. We are not ceramists, and the point is not craft. The point is to experiment with a biomaterial and find out where its limits and its potential are.

We bring one mould to demonstrate how a tile is made, but the session is open and everyone is free to make whatever they want. For anyone without ceramic skills we also bring bowls to use as moulds, so they leave with a small bowl they can actually use at home. It is open to anyone, with no previous experience needed, and it works equally well for designers, architects, students and people with no background in either. Everyone takes their pieces home the same day, having learned how the material is formulated, how pigments behave inside it, and how a discarded waste stream from the food industry becomes something workable.

Who is it for: Open to anyone, with no previous experience needed. Works equally well for designers, architects, students and people with no background in either.

This is a creative session guided by the Imagineering methodology to conceive solutions to fashion’s challenges. Participants work in teams, review the project’s challenges together, and focus on the ones that interest them most. Over the session, each team moves through the four stages of the Imagineering process to arrive at concrete solutions, working with a curated set of real sustainable materials and documenting their process live in the app (app.imasus.eu), the project’s open companion tool. There’s no grading and no single right answer; the focus is collaboration and turning an idea into something tangible.

Ahead of the event, participants will be given access to the materials, the knowledge database, and the compilation of free, open study modules, so they can arrive already familiar with what’s on the table.

The talk explores how creative hubs can become gateways to the bioeconomy by integrating community science, biomaterials, sustainability, and bio-based experimentation without becoming fully equipped laboratories. Using BioLab Lisboa and the Bio-Corners concept as examples, the session will open a discussion on creating an ECHN working group to share knowledge, develop joint initiatives, and build a European network for community science and regenerative innovation.

This talk traces the founding and evolution of Athens Makerspace over the past ten years — from a small maker community in Athens to a hub for digital and traditional fabrication. It focuses on our journey into plastic recycling through the Precious Plastic Lab program, from our first experiments turning waste into raw material to the workshops, partnerships, and community impact we’ve built since.

TransfoLAB BCN began in Barcelona in 2015 as a space for making, experimentation and waste investigation. Over a decade, it has evolved beyond the traditional makerspace model, using design, making and community as tools to rethink waste, extend material lifecycles and promote a culture of reuse. This talk shares the lessons, challenges and transformations behind this journey, and reflects on how creative spaces can contribute to more sustainable cultural practices in an age of increasing technological and artificial intelligence.

Fahrenheit.works turns oyster shells and algae from the Tagus estuary into SeaClay, a bio-based ceramic now used for tiles, furniture and educational programs. The argument is that mapping is a design tool rather than documentation, and that choosing a material is a cultural decision as much as a technical one.

Agency is often framed as an individual capacity: the ability to make choices and act upon them. Yet agency is never produced by individuals alone. It depends on the relationships, resources and structural conditions that make action possible.

Geopolitical tensions, climate change and rising inequality can leave people overwhelmed and immobilised by the sense that nothing they do will make a difference. In this climate, can cultural institutions become more than providers of programmes and services? Can they function as infrastructures for agency, connecting people to tools, knowledge, networks and real opportunities to influence decisions?

This requires a shift from designing places for people to creating conditions in which people can act together. It also means accepting that genuine agency cannot have entirely predetermined outcomes. People may question not only the world around them, but also the institution’s programmes, governance and purpose.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply whether cultural institutions can enable people to act, but whether they are willing to share influence – and allow themselves to be transformed in the process.

Greening the Hubs project has been ongoing for two years. In this session we give an update of the progress of pilots and development of the sustainability manager model. We will also give a heads up for the potential follow up project of the future of the model and the distribution of the skills learned in the program.

What does a fashion industry look like that is built on access rather than acquisition, on cooperation rather than competition? The FABRIC Future Fashion Lab in Hamburg is testing the answers. Machines, know-how and networks that no single label could finance alone become shared infrastructure. That changes the conditions under which designers work. The session/talk combines a strategic perspective with insights from practice and opens up the exchange on European cooperation and local fashion ecosystems.

At FarmLab, a rural creative hub in Austria, making follows the rhythms of the landscape: wool, plants, clay and other local resources create different opportunities throughout the year. Through a journey across the seasons, this talk explores how creative hubs can strengthen our capacity to work with local materials, bringing together inherited knowledge, contemporary technologies and connections across communities. It proposes this capacity to make, learn and act together as a form of creative agency, and a fundamental dimension of sustainability.

The Stari Grad Plain on Hvar is a 2,400-year-old Greek agricultural landscape whose ancient geometry survives almost unchanged, yet remains largely unreadable from the ground. HORA began with a simple problem: how to make this landscape more legible without imposing on it.

Following numerous smaller-scale publications that follow and build upon ECHN’s activities and events, this year the network set an entirely new challenge for itself- to edit and publish our first ever proper book release.

The Rise of Creative Hubs features more than 80 creative hubs from across Europe in what we call the Creative Hubs Atlas. It is a high-end printed edition, spanning more than 500 pages and featuring an even greater number of high-quality photographs – altogether showcasing the amazing spaces, communities and activities that are part of Europe’s creative hubs ecosystem.

At the same time an engaging read putting the creative hubs into critical context, and sharing numerous stories and profiles of the featured hubs, it is a compelling photo book, showcasing the diverse formats and approaches that are the features of creative hubs across our continent. From rural co-livings, over coworking spaces, fablabs, multifunctional makerspaces or new forms of artistic residencies, all the way to large-scale creative centers in major European cities, sometimes spanning thousands of square meters enabling creation and artistic collaboration in all of its forms.

Be among the first ones to check it out. You’ve been warned – there will be no digital version available!

Join us for guided creative tours across central Athens, exploring the city’s vibrant cultural landscape, hidden gems, and creative hubs. Details of specific tours to be announced.

Director: Victor Kossakovsky
Duration: 98 minutes
Year: 2024
Production: A24

Architecton is a 2024 documentary film about the ways that stone and concrete architecture express the values of societies. Kossakovsky presents a poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction – and offer hope for survival and a way forward.

The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on 19 February 2024, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear and the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.

Courtesy of Match Factory

Piere Bastien
Live concert

Pierre Bastien builds his own machineries, at the cross between music and visual art that blends live trumpet sounds with screen projections of on-site, mechanical sound sculptures in a very poetic way. His work is described as “a timeless sounding orchestra, both futuristic and slightly dada, conjuring ancient traditions in its surprisingly sensuous music.” Bastien has been called a “mad musical scientist with a celebrity following” by The Guardian. Collaborating in the past with filmmaker Pierrick Sorin, fashion designer Issey Miyake, singer and composer Robert Wyatt and Aphex Twin (who released three of his albums on his label Rephlex) to name a few, he is one of the most influential experimental musicians working in the field. In 1986 he formed his own self made one man orchestra, Mecanium and made over 30 records over the years

Ivanol
Live concert

Ivanol is following the trends of anti-music. The noise soundscapes do not use melody, harmony or tempo. Subtle sounds of crackles meet brutal attacks of fuzzed bassy noise. The performance is improvised – you never know what you get. Ivanol is based in Copenhagen and is loosely connected to the noise scene around Mayhem and Supernoise. The performance at Supernoise X in 2025 will be released in the fall of 2026.

Jay Glass Dubs
DJ set

Dimitris Papadatos, aka Jay Glass Dubs, is a Greek-American composer, musician and sound artist, and a key figure in experimental dub electronics and the Bokeh Versions collective. His work explores spirituality and transformation through a stripped-down, experimental approach to dub, focusing on rhythm, bass, vocals and effects. He has released extensively on labels including Bokeh Versions, DFA Records, Ecstatic and Berceuse Heroique, and collaborated with artists such as Not Waving, Guerilla Toss and Leslie Winer. His work has been presented internationally at institutions and festivals including Berlin Atonal, Meakusma Festival and documenta 14, as well as venues across Europe. His music has also been featured and broadcast by NTS Radio, BBC Radio 3, WFMU, dublab and Resonance FM.

K.atou
DJ set

K.atou has been the strongest female voice in the local Greek scene for more than a decade. After spending time in London and Berlin, she moved back to Athens in 2009 and established residencies at Six d.o.g.s., co-presented a series of parties under the name “No Expectations”, regular appearances at the queer mobile parties “Qreclaim” and as a resident DJ at PTX Athens with her second moniker “Janet Davis”. Meanwhile, her international DJ schedule blossomed, with performances across Europe, South and North America. She has performed three times at Glastonbury Festival while also she has performed in Zukunft (Zurich), Recyclart (Brussels), Bassiani takeover @ Block (Tel Aviv), Marble Bar (Detroit) to name a few. She also currently holds two residencies on Fade Radio and Movement Radio. With her mind focused on carving this dedicated path through DJing, K.atou maintains her position at the forefront of the electronic music scene. The ingredients of her particular sound can be attributed to the classic realms of the 90s house and techno from Detroit, Chicago and Frankfurt, with a penchant of the trippy, dubbed out and sublime.

The IMASUS – Imagineering Sustainability project stand invites BAUTOPIA visitors to discover the “Ten Challenges” of sustainable fashion. The exhibition showcases learning materials that turn cutting-edge research into practical tools for circular design, alongside an open knowledge base and a hands-on open-source toolkit designed to support creative, research-driven practice in fashion and textiles. Visitors will explore innovative textiles from the IMASUS Material Database, a growing collection of pioneering sustainable textile initiatives highlighting the latest advances in materials for the industry. The stand also displays student-designed garments from the Imagineering session in Spain, offering fresh perspectives and real examples of how sustainable ideas come to life.

IMASUS – Imagineering Sustainability in Fashion is a practice-based framework that bridges academic research on sustainable fashion materials with the practical needs of fashion practitioners. It aims to enhance their access to, understanding of, and integration of these materials into sustainable fashion design practices.

By: imasus.eu

COMING SOON!

The Next Gen Design Exhibition: “Futures Worth Living” presents 50 outstanding projects selected from the second edition of the Next Gen Design competition, celebrating the forward-thinking visions of a new generation of European designers. Out of more than 190 bold ideas from 29 European countries, an esteemed International Jury — Henriette Waal (The Netherlands), Juan Umbert (Spain), Nikola Radeljković (Croatia), Elli Schindler (Austria), and Emile Smeenk (The Netherlands) — selected projects that go beyond problem solving, challenging existing systems and reframing our relationship with the world around us. From reclaiming data sovereignty to designing for co-creation and repairability, from reimagining healthcare and food systems to developing more-than-human approaches to our shared environment, these 50 projects reflect a generation that has inherited profound global challenges — and chosen to respond with clarity, creativity, hope, and conviction. What unites them is a genuine belief that design can be a force for good, and the imagination to prototype meaningful and hopeful futures for people and the planet.

The resulting Next Gen Design Traveling Exhibition 2026: Futures Worth Living showcases these 50 visionary concepts by 73 young innovators through a dynamic, highly portable textile flag system, spanning nine themes: Designing Care; Matter Matters; More Than Human; Food Futures; Spaces We Share; Trust, Signals and Noise; Everyday Life, Reconsidered; Undesigning; and Learning To See. Symbolically launched from Gazi Isa-beg Isaković Square during Mikser Festival 2026 in Novi Pazar — a historic cultural crossroads that recently emerged as a powerful national symbol of unity, solidarity, and civic courage during nationwide student-led protests — the installation drew directly on the city’s spirit of social awakening. The choice of the flag format was intentional: mirroring the visual language, adaptability, and movement of grassroots protest banners, 63 custom textile flags transformed the main town square into an accessible open-air gallery and site-specific urban intervention before traveling onward to other cities.

Next Gen Design is a three-year program of co-learning, research, design competitions, workshops and exhibitions connecting 5 prominent European design platforms and festivals – Mikser Festival in Belgrade, What Design Can Do in Amsterdam and 3 Design Weeks, in Vienna, Barcelona and Skopje – aiming to encourage young creatives living in Europe to create, adopt and disseminate sustainable and just design that contributes to European Green Deal and beyond. Next Gen Design project is supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. More info about the project here.

Check out the ONLINE EXHIBITION !

Participants/Exhibitors: Niki Riehs (Austria) | Emily Klein (Austria) | Aakriti Singh (Spain) | Juana John (Germany) | Jana Valdé Cusachs (Spain) | Jakša Bogdan (Croatia) | Ibrahim Beqiri (Kosovo) | Natalia Valverde Garrido (Spain) | Alessandro Pantoja Esna (Spain) | ilja Brstina (Serbia) | Leja Rebolj (Slovenia) | Borbála Kiszely, Angelique Tscherne – The Interns ( Austria) | Hanchen Zhang (Netherlands) | Sebastian Melenge Valladares, Danna Ciendua ( Spain) | Barbara Koniecka (Italy) | Janine Kerscher (Germany) | Giulia Principe (Netherlands) | Emina Murtezić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) | Laurin Böhm(Germany) | Kelly Azevedo Galvão (Germany) | Iza van der Klauw (Netherlands) | Michael Pfandl (Austria) | Josquin Fromagé (Netherlands) | Valdís Steinarsdóttir ( Iceland) | Stefan Aleksandar Jovanovski, Angela Dimeska (North Macedonia) | Pol Valles Ventura (Spain) | Elodie Keller, Divya Tyagi, Elisa Schneider (Germany) | Vega Tapia Borrego, Sergio Berrios (Spain) | Sara Bologna (Italy) | Oğuzhan Şireli,Brandon Escalona, Mark Vedberg, Zipei Xue – Intervening Next (Sweden) | Davide Onestini – By the End of May ( Portugal) | Jo Ziyao Wang (United Kingdom) | Pere Itchart (Spain) | Jesica Balakumar (United Kingdom) | Lena Muri (Austria) | Asena Bacaksiz (Italy) | Moritz Schmid (Germany) | Balint Ligeti (Hungary) | Eugenio Costa, Nicolo Tallone, Simone Centonze – Spinto (Italy) | Marina Guzman (Spain) | Marija Kucurski (Serbia) | Rebeka Majnár (Hungary) | Lara Đolović, Anja Đorđević, Dušan Jevtić (Serbia) | Krish Raheja, Eleonora Versitano, Alireza Babaei Kalehmasihi, Francesco Lucini, Adriana Sofia Rojas Vasquez ( Italy) | Katrina Deicmane (Latvia) | Giulia De Franco (Italy) | Marko Škrbić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) | Anna Kudrjavceva (Serbia) | Ekim Güney Öztürk (Italy) | Abril Poblet Baringo (Spain)

By: nextgendesign.eu

Demagog Studio is an independent game development and animation studio located in Belgrade, Serbia, co-founded in 2017 by artist and filmmaker Igor Simić.

As they say: We’re an omnichannel arteinment facility, a supplier of non-slop, anti-escapist, semi-fun, story-driven, so-so games and animations that will save our souls. Their approach to original “Return to Earth” IP entails: A. a sharp idea about modern life; B. storytelling with engaging characters; C. rich world-building; D. stories told through nonlinear media with focus on gaming. They call this attitude Constellation Storytelling.

The studio focuses on socially and environmentally engaged narrative games that explore climate change, dystopian futures, and stark economic divides within a shared post-apocalyptic universe.

BAUTOPIA visitors will have a chance to play three of their signature games.

Golf Club: Wasteland (also known as Golf Club: Nostalgia) – A satirical game where the ultra-wealthy elite live on Mars and return to play golf amidst the ruined, climate-ravaged landscape of Earth, accompanied by the in-game radio station Radio Nostalgia for Mars.

Highwater – A narrative adventure game released via Netflix exploring life in flooded regional areas and survival struggles.

The Cub – A fast-paced platformer and spiritual successor inspired by classic 1990s jungle run games, set in the same dystopian universe

This session creates a space for exchange between hub leaders, sharing practical examples, lessons learned, failures and innovative revenue strategies. All this in a time when sustaining operations of a hub is becoming increasingly challenging, in the face of raised costs, shrinking public spaces, pressures of real estate market and gentrification, as well as increasingly insecure position of hubs’ community memebrs when it comes to their respective professions and income.

Over the years, it has been clear that ECHN members relate the most to stories, experience and advice coming from peers, not from consultants or finance specialists. This is exactly what we would like to achieve in this session – to share applicable stories that can be used by fellow peers in order to help them sustain their operations in the coming period.

We will tackle the questions of cost optimization, team management, dealing with loans and investments, challenging and shrinking project funding, the role of AI in all this and many others. The goal is for every participant to leave with new ideas they can adapt to their own organisation.

Among other questions, we will touch upon: Which activities actually generate sustainable income?; How can we balance commercial services with community impact?; What business models have proven successful in different countries?

The Cost of Making: An Honest Look at the Economics of Running a Public Makerspace
Renata Zamida (Ceneter ROG)

People are the most valuable asset of any makerspace, but also its greatest expense. Using Center Rog as a case study, this session examines staffing costs, team structure, revenue generation, and the management decisions required to balance public value with financial sustainability.

IN Between: A guided journey for organizations in transition
Nana Radenković (Nova Iskra)

Aimed at cultural organizations, creative hubs, civic initiatives, educational projects, mission-driven businesses, foundations, and networks navigating moments of uncertainty, growth, exhaustion, restructuring, or transformation. IN Between offers confidential, strategic support adapted to the specific realities, pace, and ambitions of each organization.

From Language to Belonging: Five Years of Building a Community for Newcomers in Georgia
Maria Shirshova (Sami Residence)

What started as a small educational initiative for newcomers gradually grew into a community of thousands of people looking not only for language skills, but for connection, friendship, cultural understanding, professional opportunities and a sense of belonging. We will explore how language became a tool rather than a goal, how cultural experiences helped create trust and participation, and why belonging may be one of the most important forms of agency we can offer people navigating a new place, a new culture and a new chapter of their lives.

Generating Opportunities: How Creative Hubs Build Sustainable Communities
Manuela Stefanelli (Comin Center)

The Festival of Opportunities as a collaborative European case study. The Festival of Opportunities is a community-driven initiative developed by Universcosud in partnership with ConSorzio dell’Università della Basilicata and Comincenter in Potenza (South Italy) that explores how cultural and creative organisations can become generators of opportunities rather than simply producers of events.

UX/UI in community projects
Lillie Sanna (Stpln) & Dilara Güney (Aks Ankara)

Aks Ankara and STPLN have been exploring placemaking and the role of artists in shaping cities. For their latest project, we wanted to move beyond the traditional, static “PDF toolkit” output and instead create a useful and usable digital platform/tool. Transitioning from research to tech required us to bridge the gap between creative and technical worlds. In this session we explore the critical role of UX/UI in community projects, learn practical tips for managing non-tech to tech feedback loops, and discover how to reimagine project outputs for a digital-first audience.

Reclaiming Creative Agency | DIGITAL on STAGE
Yorgos Mouftoglou (Cube)

The case study presents the DIGITAL on STAGE Creative Europe project as a concrete response to the urgent question of creative agency in the age of AI and digital transformation. The presentation will showcase how the project empowers artists, programmers, and cultural organisations to actively shape technological change (rather than be shaped by it) through a three-pillar approach combining know-how, funding, and networking. It demonstrates how digital technologies can act as co-creative tools that reinforce (not replace) performing arts, strengthening both artistic agency and sector sustainability.

International Peer Creators
Katja Hellkoetter (C*Space)

Katja is one of the two first beneficiaries of a brand new mobility program introduced in 2026 by ECHN, which offer an opportunity for creative hub professionals to travel beyond Europe, and connect with peers from other continents through collaborative projects, study visits and shadowing, increasing the international scope of the network, and the level of intercultural dialogue. After spending some weeks in Taiwan this Autumn, Katja will share her experience and encourage peers to get involved in this program in the future.

Sustainable Packaging is an interactive workshop dedicated to exploring alternative packaging solutions using bio-based and biodegradable materials.

Through hands-on experimentation with accessible recipes, participants consider packaging as a dynamic material system with distinct life cycles rather than a simple single-use container. Attendees explore three core material methods:

• Wax-Infused Fabrics: Crafting reusable textile wraps treated with beeswax, pine resin, and coconut oil.
• Alginate Biofilms: Production of algae-based flexible biofilms.
• Gelatin Packaging: Designing prototypes based on gelatin, inspired by instant noodle packaging.

Participants will get practical insight into material properties, end-of-life considerations, sourcing, biodegradability, and reuse potential. All will get their own produced packaging prototypes.

The workshop is designed for beginners and does not require any previous technical, scientific, or materials knowledge. All techniques and processes will be introduced from the beginning and developed through hands-on experimentation.

Each participant will create and take away sustainable packaging prototypes, exploring three different material approaches: beeswax wrap, alginate biofilm, and gelatin-based packaging. You will learn how to prepare and work with bio-based materials and transform them into packaging prototypes. You will explore their properties, flexibility, strength, and moldability, as well as their potential for reuse, biodegradability, and alternative product life cycles.

European wool is increasingly becoming an underutilized local resource, despite its remarkable qualities and cultural value. At the same time, digital fabrication is opening new possibilities for making traditional crafts more accessible, adaptable and collaborative.

This workshop explores how these two realities can meet. Through a series of short demonstrations and an open making session, participants will discover the journey of wool—from natural dyeing to weaving—and learn how laser-cut looms and 3D printed tools can support, rather than replace, traditional textile practices. Rather than teaching a single technique, the workshop presents an open methodology that participants can adapt and replicate within their own creative hubs, makerspaces and communities.

Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with natural dyes, try weaving on an open-source laser-cut loom and explore how digital fabrication can contribute to more sustainable and locally rooted craft practices.

The workshop is intended for makers, designers, artists, educators, FabLabs, creative hubs and anyone curious about the intersection of craft and technology. No previous experience is required. Participants will leave with a naturally dyed wool skein, a reusable mini laser-cut loom, a 3D printed weaving needle, a small woven sample, and a methodology that can inspire new ways of connecting local materials, digital tools and traditional crafts.

The Ministry of Renewable Extinction (MRX) is an on-going near future prototype of a ministry that offers jobs during the climate extinction. Upon the occupation orientation day, the ministry will walk you through its working methodology at the possible end of the world. For the Transeuropa Festival, the MRX will host its first-ever conference to widen its branch: how to create your own ministries with jobs from the future(s).

There are probably more movies, music albums and books released this year than ever before in human history. There are more people graduating from artistic schools than ever before. Still, there is a growing notion among GenZ that this is basically over. Nothing new or authentic will ever be created again. Is that notion an afterthought of the Post-Modern Condition or a by-product of the invasion of AI programs in all levels of creativity?

Even the most hardened sceptics can no longer ignore the reality of our changing planet—a crisis that has routinely prompted warnings framed through apocalyptic narratives. How do we transcend doomsday dread to cultivate genuine, actionable hope while safeguarding creative agency and authorship?

The premise (and the title!) of his performative lecture takes a provocative look at the impact that the ubiquity of platformized content has on our daily lives. Although this endless inundation of images, sounds, films and other media appears at first glance incoherent and ready to overwhelm the viewer, Simić does not succumb to nostalgia for a simpler past, opting instead to mould it into a film where they can all coexist at peace with each other.

Director: Werner Herzog
Duration: 107 minutes
Year: 2022
Production: Skellig Rock

The Neurorights Foundation teamed with renowned director Werner Herzog to create a compelling documentary film about the human brain. Theatre of Thought is a captivating exploration of the human mind through the lens of legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog.

In this film, Herzog delves into the complexities of consciousness, the mysteries of the “human” mind, and the nature of thought itself, engaging with leading experts from various fields. A mesmerizing journey into the depths of the mind, Theater of Thought challenges perceptions and sparks introspection about our inner worlds.

Screening made possible courtesy of: Neurorights Foundation

Klinical (Overview Music)
DJ Set

Klinical, the alias of Dan Paget, is a British drum and bass producer and DJ hailing from Melksham, Wiltshire. He began his musical journey in 2015 while studying film production at university in Southampton, where he also co-promoted drum and bass nights alongside fellow artist Kanine. Initially producing jump-up tracks, Klinical’s exposure to minimal drum and bass artists like Arkaik, Amoss, and Fre4knc in 2014 inspired him to explore deeper, more minimalistic sounds within the genre.
Over the years, Klinical has developed a distinctive style characterised by deep, sub-loaded basslines and stripped-back constructions. His productions have been released on respected labels such as Lifestyle Music, Overview Music, and Context Audio.
Klinical’s relocation to Bristol, a city renowned for its vibrant bass music scene, has further influenced his musical trajectory. Immersed in an environment pulsating with musical diversity, he has collaborated with artists like Spektiv and Killa P, expanding his repertoire to include explorations into 140 bpm dubstep. As a DJ, Klinical has performed at various events and venues, captivating audiences with his deep and minimalistic sets. His commitment to pushing the boundaries of drum and bass, combined with his innovative approach to production, continues to solidify his reputation as a forward-thinking artist within the electronic music landscape.

Insomniac (Revoltekk)
DJ Set

Insomniac aka honnez rvtk is a jungle – drum & bass DJ and curator of the Italian Alps based collective named Revoltekk [RVTK]. He’s a lifetime music lover and his set spirit crosses many genres from 140, deep, tribal, to neuro and tech influenced bass music. As a local promoter he developed different party series like the TINNITUS, SQUARE or BASSILIKUM projects and was one of few to ignite the South Tyrolean scene.
The last 10 years honnez developed an urban hub with a proper club venue, shared spaces and apartments in an former fascist military barack named BASIS Vinschgau Venosta and KASINO. Together with his team and passionate friends he hosts local, regional and international artists for music exchange, inspiration and incubation. In the idyllic alpine landscape of Venosta valley people love the quality of nature, food and the focus-retreat aspect. From the early 2000s till today he met a lot of true friends in the international circus and his signature selection achieved a worthwhile reputation!

Cryogenics (Audio Theory/Evill Audio)
DJ Set

Cryogenics is a Greek electronic music artist exploring the darker, deeper and more atmospheric sides of drum & bass. Rooted in the energy of oldschool jungle and the raw character of 90s drum & bass, his sound moves between deep, dark and atmospheric territories, blending weighty basslines, intricate breakbeats and immersive soundscapes. His approach is driven by a fascination with texture, rhythm and atmosphere — creating music that feels both powerful and cinematic, where tension and movement coexist with space and emotion. With a sound that draws from jungle, drum & bass and leftfield electronic music, Cryogenics continues to develop a distinctive sonic identity, balancing the rawness of the underground with a more experimental and atmospheric edge.

Binetou
Talk & DJ set

Binetou Sylla is a French-Senegalese executive music producer and author, founder and director of the independent label Wèrè Wèrè Music, which she runs from Paris and Lagos. She spent ten years at the head of Syllart Records, the label founded by her father Ibrahima Sory Sylla, where she rebuilt the contractual base of a catalogue of more than 30,000 tracks, cleared its rights, digitised its masters and brought the label’s YouTube channel close to two million subscribers, and she went on to lead Def Jam Africa for Universal Music France. A former music columnist for Le Monde, co-author of Le Dérangeur and co-producer of the podcast Piment on Radio Nova, she works between Paris and the continent to build lasting structures for African music.

Kampire
DJ Set

Among East Africa’s most exciting DJs and a core member of Kampala’s Nyege Nyege collective, Kampire’s vibrant bass-heavy sets have transported her to bring the best of Ugandan party culture to clubs & festivals across the world. Her Boiler Room set from Nyege Nyege festival 2018 was a legitimate ‘internet moment’, with thousands of shares leading to serious FOMO from electronic music fans watching online. In October 2021 Kampire joined BBC Radio 1’s as one of their esteemed ‘Residency’ host DJs, giving her an even bigger platform for showcasing the best new music from across the diaspora and followed this with a crucial BBC Essential Mix in 2022. Her monthly NTS Radio Residency has continued to see Kampire shine a light on other DJs & artists from Africa and the diaspora, including Authentically Plastic, Chrisman & DJ IV.

The recent ‘A Dancefloor in Ndola’ compilation curated for Strut Records, saw Kampire return to her roots and bring together a range of different East and Southern African genres from Congolese rumba and soukous to 1980s township bubblegum and the rich guitar-led sounds of Zambian kalindula. “There are styles of music on the compilation which are often considered unsophisticated from rural areas. I and other contemporary African artists and DJs draw inspiration from them; it is part of what makes us ourselves.” Kampire also shines the spotlight on many incredible women in African music from the 80s, including Congolese legends like Pembey Sheiro, Feza Shamamba and Princesse Mansia M’bila to V-Mash and Di Groovy Girls from South Africa As a curator, Kampire’s week-long ‘Club & Care’ Residency at Gessnerallee in Zurich celebrated inclusive nightlife; with workshops, a sober day rave and a club night featuring internationally recognized DJs and local collectives.

Adamantios (Teranga Beat)
DJ Set

Adamantios Kafetzis, visual artist, intensive record collector, DJ, owner of the Teranga Beat record label and editor of the Eligo Audio Culture website. Adamantios Kafetzis curates DJ-sets of rare power and true feeling, always presenting unpredictable recordings. After extensive research and regular visits to Senegal and its neighboring countries, he decided to establish Teranga Beat Records, bringing to the fore a well-hidden chapter of West African music. Based in Dakar, Teranga Beat started in 2010, releasing “Diamonoye Tiopité – L’ Epoque De L’Evolution”. To date, Teranga Beat has released 14 releases. Hybrid Grooves from around the world.

The IMASUS – Imagineering Sustainability project stand invites BAUTOPIA visitors to discover the “Ten Challenges” of sustainable fashion. The exhibition showcases learning materials that turn cutting-edge research into practical tools for circular design, alongside an open knowledge base and a hands-on open-source toolkit designed to support creative, research-driven practice in fashion and textiles. Visitors will explore innovative textiles from the IMASUS Material Database, a growing collection of pioneering sustainable textile initiatives highlighting the latest advances in materials for the industry. The stand also displays student-designed garments from the Imagineering session in Spain, offering fresh perspectives and real examples of how sustainable ideas come to life.

IMASUS – Imagineering Sustainability in Fashion is a practice-based framework that bridges academic research on sustainable fashion materials with the practical needs of fashion practitioners. It aims to enhance their access to, understanding of, and integration of these materials into sustainable fashion design practices.

By: imasus.eu

COMING SOON!

The Next Gen Design Exhibition: “Futures Worth Living” presents 50 outstanding projects selected from the second edition of the Next Gen Design competition, celebrating the forward-thinking visions of a new generation of European designers. Out of more than 190 bold ideas from 29 European countries, an esteemed International Jury — Henriette Waal (The Netherlands), Juan Umbert (Spain), Nikola Radeljković (Croatia), Elli Schindler (Austria), and Emile Smeenk (The Netherlands) — selected projects that go beyond problem solving, challenging existing systems and reframing our relationship with the world around us. From reclaiming data sovereignty to designing for co-creation and repairability, from reimagining healthcare and food systems to developing more-than-human approaches to our shared environment, these 50 projects reflect a generation that has inherited profound global challenges — and chosen to respond with clarity, creativity, hope, and conviction. What unites them is a genuine belief that design can be a force for good, and the imagination to prototype meaningful and hopeful futures for people and the planet.

The resulting Next Gen Design Traveling Exhibition 2026: Futures Worth Living showcases these 50 visionary concepts by 73 young innovators through a dynamic, highly portable textile flag system, spanning nine themes: Designing Care; Matter Matters; More Than Human; Food Futures; Spaces We Share; Trust, Signals and Noise; Everyday Life, Reconsidered; Undesigning; and Learning To See. Symbolically launched from Gazi Isa-beg Isaković Square during Mikser Festival 2026 in Novi Pazar — a historic cultural crossroads that recently emerged as a powerful national symbol of unity, solidarity, and civic courage during nationwide student-led protests — the installation drew directly on the city’s spirit of social awakening. The choice of the flag format was intentional: mirroring the visual language, adaptability, and movement of grassroots protest banners, 63 custom textile flags transformed the main town square into an accessible open-air gallery and site-specific urban intervention before traveling onward to other cities.

Next Gen Design is a three-year program of co-learning, research, design competitions, workshops and exhibitions connecting 5 prominent European design platforms and festivals – Mikser Festival in Belgrade, What Design Can Do in Amsterdam and 3 Design Weeks, in Vienna, Barcelona and Skopje – aiming to encourage young creatives living in Europe to create, adopt and disseminate sustainable and just design that contributes to European Green Deal and beyond. Next Gen Design project is supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. More info about the project here.

Check out the ONLINE EXHIBITION !

Participants/Exhibitors: Niki Riehs (Austria) | Emily Klein (Austria) | Aakriti Singh (Spain) | Juana John (Germany) | Jana Valdé Cusachs (Spain) | Jakša Bogdan (Croatia) | Ibrahim Beqiri (Kosovo) | Natalia Valverde Garrido (Spain) | Alessandro Pantoja Esna (Spain) | ilja Brstina (Serbia) | Leja Rebolj (Slovenia) | Borbála Kiszely, Angelique Tscherne – The Interns ( Austria) | Hanchen Zhang (Netherlands) | Sebastian Melenge Valladares, Danna Ciendua ( Spain) | Barbara Koniecka (Italy) | Janine Kerscher (Germany) | Giulia Principe (Netherlands) | Emina Murtezić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) | Laurin Böhm(Germany) | Kelly Azevedo Galvão (Germany) | Iza van der Klauw (Netherlands) | Michael Pfandl (Austria) | Josquin Fromagé (Netherlands) | Valdís Steinarsdóttir ( Iceland) | Stefan Aleksandar Jovanovski, Angela Dimeska (North Macedonia) | Pol Valles Ventura (Spain) | Elodie Keller, Divya Tyagi, Elisa Schneider (Germany) | Vega Tapia Borrego, Sergio Berrios (Spain) | Sara Bologna (Italy) | Oğuzhan Şireli,Brandon Escalona, Mark Vedberg, Zipei Xue – Intervening Next (Sweden) | Davide Onestini – By the End of May ( Portugal) | Jo Ziyao Wang (United Kingdom) | Pere Itchart (Spain) | Jesica Balakumar (United Kingdom) | Lena Muri (Austria) | Asena Bacaksiz (Italy) | Moritz Schmid (Germany) | Balint Ligeti (Hungary) | Eugenio Costa, Nicolo Tallone, Simone Centonze – Spinto (Italy) | Marina Guzman (Spain) | Marija Kucurski (Serbia) | Rebeka Majnár (Hungary) | Lara Đolović, Anja Đorđević, Dušan Jevtić (Serbia) | Krish Raheja, Eleonora Versitano, Alireza Babaei Kalehmasihi, Francesco Lucini, Adriana Sofia Rojas Vasquez ( Italy) | Katrina Deicmane (Latvia) | Giulia De Franco (Italy) | Marko Škrbić (Bosnia and Herzegovina) | Anna Kudrjavceva (Serbia) | Ekim Güney Öztürk (Italy) | Abril Poblet Baringo (Spain)

By: nextgendesign.eu

Demagog Studio is an independent game development and animation studio located in Belgrade, Serbia, co-founded in 2017 by artist and filmmaker Igor Simić.

As they say: We’re an omnichannel arteinment facility, a supplier of non-slop, anti-escapist, semi-fun, story-driven, so-so games and animations that will save our souls. Their approach to original “Return to Earth” IP entails: A. a sharp idea about modern life; B. storytelling with engaging characters; C. rich world-building; D. stories told through nonlinear media with focus on gaming. They call this attitude Constellation Storytelling.

The studio focuses on socially and environmentally engaged narrative games that explore climate change, dystopian futures, and stark economic divides within a shared post-apocalyptic universe.

BAUTOPIA visitors will have a chance to play three of their signature games.

Golf Club: Wasteland (also known as Golf Club: Nostalgia) – A satirical game where the ultra-wealthy elite live on Mars and return to play golf amidst the ruined, climate-ravaged landscape of Earth, accompanied by the in-game radio station Radio Nostalgia for Mars.

Highwater – A narrative adventure game released via Netflix exploring life in flooded regional areas and survival struggles.

The Cub – A fast-paced platformer and spiritual successor inspired by classic 1990s jungle run games, set in the same dystopian universe