Pop-Up Lab: Studiotopia Jam – event summary from Łaźnia CCC
Pop-up Lab: Studiotopia Jam – event summary from Łaźnia CCC
From April 24–26, 2026, the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art (now the Gdańsk Centre for Contemporary Art) hosted an intensive 48-hour game jam organized as part of the international Studiotopia 2 project. The event also featured a lecture by Łukasz Goraczewski – an experienced game designer specializing in data-driven design.
Three teams took part in the game jam. Despite the limited timeframe, all groups successfully developed functional game prototypes exploring the relationship between humans and the natural environment.
The winning project, “Symbiocen 3” by Andrzej Habas, Oliwia Gapińska, and Pola Sztuk, focuses on developing an ecosystem inhabited by the player. The player discovers and learns the game’s system through interaction, deciding whether to cooperate with other organisms or act independently.
Other projects included:
- “Symbiocen Ultra” – an interactive visual novel using the format of a pseudo-psychological test to prompt reflection on the role of humans in the natural world. Authors: Zuzanna Ziarnik, Eliza Pilarska, Nadia Kasprowicz.
- “Symbeeocne” – a game by Maciej “Sev Mu-9” Dyk and Mantis Kozłowski, in which the player takes on the role of a bee pollinating flowers; progress gradually transforms the visual atmosphere of the game, making it increasingly brighter and more uplifting.
All developed games will be presented at the Gdansk Centre for Contemporary Art, Jaskółcza 1, until the end of the exhibition “Studiotopia 2.0 | Sensitive Data of the Anthropocene.”
Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab 2025 brought interdisciplinary creativity to Cluj-Napoca
Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab 2025 brought interdisciplinary creativity to Cluj-Napoca
Between 21–25 July 2025, Cluj-Napoca became a hub for interdisciplinary exchange and experimentation, hosting the Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab, an intensive summer school that brought together art, science and education to explore sustainable urban futures.
The program gathered 20 young participants from Romania and across Europe, who spent five days working collaboratively on creative and practical responses to pressing urban challenges. Designed as a dynamic learning environment, the lab combined Design Thinking methodologies, artistic exploration and field-based research, encouraging participants to rethink how cities function and whom they serve.
A week of exploration, collaboration, and creative inquiry
The Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab opened with a meet & greet session that quickly set the tone for a highly interactive week. One of the first exercises, Pop-Up Places, invited participants to translate personal memories into handcrafted pop-up cards, mapping emotional connections to their home cities through storytelling and visual expression.
This was followed by a dérive experience, an unstructured urban exploration method that encouraged participants to navigate Cluj intuitively, without digital tools. By engaging directly with the city’s rhythms, textures and social dynamics, participants gathered insights that later informed their project work.
On the second day, these experiences were transformed into emotional maps, capturing not only routes, but also sensations, encounters and perceptions. Guided by facilitator Marius Mornea, participants were introduced to the Design Thinking framework, moving from empathy and problem definition to ideation, prototyping and iterative testing.
The program also featured artistic and sensory-based learning, including a workshop led by Portuguese artist Ânia Pais. Held in the Cluj Botanical Garden, the session encouraged participants to engage with nature beyond observation, drawing with their eyes closed, experimenting with natural materials, and collectively building visual narratives. The exercise emphasized intuition, collaboration and the role of art in understanding ecological systems.
Throughout the week, participants engaged in creative labs, discussions, and co-creation sessions, building a shared language across disciplines and cultural backgrounds.
The final day extended learning beyond the city, with visits to the Tăușeni Monumental Ensemble by Alexandru Chira and the Sic reed beds, where artistic vision and environmental awareness connected.
Five teams, five visions for the city
The Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab concluded with a public presentation of projects developed by participants working in teams. Each proposal addressed urban challenges identified during the week, combining creativity, research and practical thinking.
Among the concepts presented:
Race Against Waste proposed a mobile app connecting students in Cluj through weekly ecological and social challenges, from cleaning green spaces and planting trees to cooking communal meals and exploring the city together. Real actions are rewarded with festival tickets, course credits, discounts and leadership roles, creating a growing incentive system that ties individual effort to collective impact. Built on local university networks, the project leverages Cluj’s student community to drive environmental action at scale.
Team: Carla Precup (RO), Andrei Lupea (RO), Maria Prunean (RO), Nina Serra (FR), Alessandro Mazzani (IT)
Cluj Cultural Pavilions started from a pointed question: who truly has the right to the city? The team’s answer was a series of modular structures made from recycled tarpaulins, transforming underused public spaces into shaded hubs for culture, activism, and collective exchange. More than shade structures, the pavilions are proposed as tools for reclaiming the urban commons — a demand, the team argued, for moving from individualistic to participatory access to public space.
Team: Rudi-lee McCarthy (IRE), Adina Gîlceavă (RO), Vlad Beu (RO), Joel Chebri (FR)
Arbor Echo invited the city to see trees not as decorative objects but as active, living infrastructure. The project imagines tree-like structures in Cluj’s public squares that draw people in with shaded seating and VR headsets transporting visitors into lush forest soundscapes. The goal is both immediate, offering moments of calm amid urban noise, and long-term, shifting the cultural perception of trees as essential civic partners in building resilient, liveable cities.
Team: Ariadna Gulic (RO), Michelle Medici (IT), Sarah Helen Mbambu Maswaku (BE), Stavros Kazakos (CY)
The Plantform reimagines overlooked urban corners — vacant lots, neglected squares, rooftops — as modular, living spaces that support gardening, gathering and community life simultaneously. Compact, adaptable and sustainable by design, the Plantform system can quickly transform parks and plazas into vibrant hubs with planters, seating, mini stages and shaded areas. Its impact extends across biodiversity, community ties and cultural programming, while democratising access to public performance spaces.
Team: Alexandra Măican (RO), Andrei Lela (RO), Jonathan Aparicio Ruiz (SP), Sarmad Salloum (BG)
University Territories as Public Urban Parks was the Lab’s closing vision: what if the campuses of Cluj’s universities were opened to the entire city? The team proposed transforming underused university land into green, ecological spaces for learning, connection and collective care: urban forests, eco-education gardens, beekeeping zones and creative community hubs. With universities positioned as publicly funded institutions already holding expertise in ecology and sustainability, the project makes the case for knowledge that doesn’t stop at the university gate.
Team: Robert Konoplia (UA), Ana Jerina (SVN), Simion Iepure-Górski (RO), Dominika Szymańska (PL)
The Studiotopia International Pop-up Lab wrapped up on 25 July, but the ideas developed during the week remain relevant. The projects reflect concrete ways of rethinking urban spaces in Cluj, with potential to be tested, adapted or taken further in other contexts.
Engineering Students Discover New Ways to Connect with the Living World
Engineering Students Discover New Ways to Connect with the Living World
The second Pop‑Up Lab at Hexagone (France) took place from 27 to 29 January 2026 at INP‑UGA/ENSE3 – Graduate School of Sustainable Engineering for Energy, Water and Environment in Grenoble. Once again led by circus and dance artist Fanny Soriano, the workshop invited engineering students to step outside analytical thinking and explore sensitive, emotional, and embodied approaches to the living world.
Through movement‑based experimentation, participants examined how humans can perceive and relate to other species beyond technical or rational frameworks. The workshop culminated in a conference by a senior engineer titled “How to Include the Living World in Engineering”, opening a dialogue on how future engineers might integrate ecological awareness into their professional practice.
Circus Artist Fanny Soriano Explores Human–Plant Relations in Grenoble
Circus Artist Explore Human–Plant Relations in Grenoble
From 13 to 15 January 2025, the University Grenoble Alpes/Design Factory hosted the first Pop‑Up Lab of the European project Studiotopia 2, led by circus artist Fanny Soriano. The artist is, with the help of neuroscientist Kalliopi Ioumpa, developing an interdisciplinary artistic research project examining how humans relate to invasive plant species—particularly Japanese knotweed.
Over three days, students engaged in a workshop blending circus arts, physical theatre, and ecological inquiry. Through movement exercises and direct interaction with knotweed, participants explored notions of symbiosis, imbalance, and the shifting boundaries between bodies and ecosystems.
“Getting back in touch with nature, with our bodies, being sensitive to what surrounds us, listening to our sensations, smelling and touching seems to me to be imperative if we are to evolve in this world in transition,” Soriano reflected at the end of the session.
Imagining Sustainable Water Futures on the Brussels Canal
Imagining Sustainable Water Futures on the Brussels Canal
Still the River was a participatory art and reflection project initiated by Gluon in collaboration with the young artist collective Maleza. Through a series of workshops held aboard a boat on the Brussels canal, the project invited citizens to reconsider the role of this urban waterway and its connection to sustainability, community, and city life.
Across four workshops in August 2025, a total of 60 participants engaged in immersive, site-based experiences directly on the canal. Combining artistic practice with environmental reflection, participants explored their personal and collective relationships to the water through creative techniques such as linocut printing and collective weaving.
The workshops fostered dialogue around key themes including urban ecology, sustainable development, and the historical transformation of the canal. Participants were encouraged to see the waterway not merely as infrastructure, but as a living, interconnected ecosystem—an approach inspired by the philosophy of Buen Vivir, which emphasizes harmony between people, nature, and community.
A central outcome of the project was the creation of a large collaborative textile map, developed through prints and stitched contributions. This artwork reflects the canal as a shared yet complex and “wounded” body, shaped by social, economic, and environmental forces. The workshops were also documented and later presented as a video installation displayed on a mycelium screen aboard the same floating venue.
By combining artistic expression, collective learning, and environmental awareness, Still the River created a space for meaningful exchange and strengthened participants’ sense of connection and responsibility towards sustainable urban water systems.
Workshop that Explored Water Scarcity Through Art, Science, and Field Research
Workshop that Explored Water Scarcity Through Art, Science, and Field Research
A two‑day Pop‑Up Lab workshop, held on 20-21 November 2025 as part of the WIP Festival that took place in the CYENS Centre of Excellence (Cyprus), brought university students into direct contact with the ecological realities of water scarcity and desertification in Cyprus.
Led by artist Miguel Teodoro, the workshop combined scientific insight, hands‑on fieldwork, and creative interpretation to help participants understand how shifting ecologies shape everyday life on the island.
Immersive Fieldwork in Akaki
The workshop opened with a full‑day excursion to the Akaki Regenerative Farm. After departing from CYENS in Nicosia, students were welcomed by local practitioners who introduced current climate trends and the principles of agroecology and regenerative agriculture. A guided tour of the farm provided firsthand exposure to the environmental pressures affecting the region.
Participants then engaged in collective fieldwork, gathering soil and sediment samples, documenting ecological traces through photography, film, and drawing, and observing how drought conditions manifest in the landscape. The day concluded with a reflective session, where students translated their observations into visual notes and keywords that would guide the next phase of the workshop.
Creative Transformation at Thinker Maker Space
The second day shifted from field observation to creative interpretation. Meeting at CYENS Thinker Maker Space, participants revisited the materials collected in Akaki and explored them through group readings, discussions, and sensory mapping exercises.
Through collaborative drawing, writing, and conceptual development, students transformed raw ecological data into artistic frameworks that highlight patterns of drought, adaptation, and resilience. The session emphasized how artistic and scientific practices can intersect to articulate local experiences of environmental change.
Artist and STUDIOTOPIA resident Miguel Teodoro guided the workshop, encouraging participants to approach environmental issues through multisensory exploration and interdisciplinary thinking. His practice, which often bridges ecological research and creative expression, shaped the workshop’s focus on embodied learning and collaborative interpretation.
Pop‑Up Lab workshop was part of the broader WIP LAB 2025 Invisible Waters: Creative Talks & Open Play, which invites artists and researchers to share work‑in‑progress ideas through experimentation, dialogue, and public engagement.
