Λarnaka 2030 with great imagination and extroversion launches a new long-term project at the cutting edge of research and art, the Larnaka BioDesign Festival, inviting us to look at the issues of sustainability and ecological responsibility completely outside the box. Combining the latest trends in bio-design, art and academic research, the festival fuels thinking and public debate about the materials we use in our homes, clothes and cities. It is time to start envisioning buildings made from mushrooms, furniture and clothing from algae, shoes from wasted animal tissues.
The aim of the first edition of the Larnaka BioDesign Festival is to introduce the concept and practice of bio-design, promoting dialogue and exchange around innovative ideas and sustainable practices. Biodesign, in general, is about using biological systems and/or living organisms to create new products, medical treatments and even biofuels. Biodesign represents a design movement that uses living materials such as fungi, algae, yeast, bacteria and cultured tissues to create fully sustainable and ecological products. In an era facing the severity of ecological disruption this debate ceases to be an academic guest and becomes an urgent need.
For the first time Cyprus and Larnaca host a festival of this kind, entering with confidence into the international biodesign scene. Taking advantage of both the natural resources of Larnaca and the presence in our city of important institutions dealing with design, such as Youth Makerspace Larnaka, and sustainable development and the environment, such as the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI), Larnaca 2030, starting with the first Larnaka BioDesign Festival, aims to make the city a reference point in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region in the field of biodesign and sustainability.
