Art & Science Fair at LABoral Showcases Youth Innovation
Art & Science Fair at LABoral Showcases Youth Innovation
In November, LABoral Centro de Arte hosted a new edition of its Art and Science Fair, bringing together secondary‑school students for a day of hands‑on experimentation at the intersection of creativity and research. The event, developed in collaboration with the collective GRIGRI and framed within the European project Studiotopia II, transformed the Gijón art center into a laboratory of ideas where young participants explored themes ranging from interspecies cooperation to the social impact of artificial intelligence.
Throughout the fair, students had the opportunity to apply to six different workshops led by artists, educators, and scientists, each designed to spark curiosity and encourage critical thinking. The activities invited participants to test materials, prototype concepts, and reflect on how artistic practice can help address contemporary environmental and technological challenges.
The gathering concluded with a collective assembly in which students shared their findings and discussed the role of creativity in shaping future solutions.
You can take a deeper look into the fair trough bellow video that captures the energy of the day, offering a closer look at the projects, conversations, and collaborative spirit that defined this year’s edition.
Video: Nadia Penella
Smells Like Kin opened at LABoral Centro de Arte
Smells Like Kin opened at LABoral Centro de Arte
The exhibition Smells Like Kin opened at LABoral Centro de Arte on November 7, 2025, inviting visitors into a sensory exploration of fermentation.
Every day, we digest live microbial cultures—cheese, dough, yoghurt, cider—in the form of liquids and fermented foods.
Smells Like Kin is the result of artistic research into these traditional and laboratory fermentation practices, both inside and outside Asturias. The exhibition presents a sensory experience around the culture of fermentation that invites visitors to smell, touch, or listen to the elements present in the gallery.
The floor sculptures show the soundscapes collected by the artists: the vibration of pressing apples for cider, the decomposition of matter recorded with hydrophones, and narratives of people who engage in fermentation in Asturias, whether as daily work, festive ritual, or scientific experiment.
In the space, aromas move and settle, activating memories and bodily knowledge. The suspended silicone membranes—moulded on the concrete floor of LABoral—evoke the scoby, a living organism that ferments, unites and transforms.
Smells Like Kin proposes fermentation as a way of thinking and feeling the connection with the living, an essay on expanded relationships: bonds based on shared practices, mutual transformations and interspecies relationships, questioning inherited ideas of belonging beyond the blood family.
Artists: Dr. Lea Luka Sikau y Denisa Půbalová
Scientist: Felipe Lombó
Originaly published at LABoral Centro de Arte.
