Podium | 01.06.2022 – 03.06.2022

1–3 June: From TOUCH to SPARK, Bilbao-Biscay
The Draiflessen Collection presents Daan Roosegaarde at the Wellbeing Summit for Social Change

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In July of 2019, our director Dr. Corinna Otto accepted an invitation from the Wellbeing Project to curate an exhibition expressing the project’s core themes for a conference festival in Bilbao-Biscay, Spain, in June 2022 Among other topics, the festival, called the “Wellbeing Summit for Social Change”, will address neuroscientific research on the topic of wellbeing, that is mental health and inner wellness, and how we can achieve it in the spirit of an ecological lifestyle. The acceptance and prioritization of wellbeing, and developing ways to implement it in organisational structures, form key objectives of the conference, which will centre around art.
The cooperative project quickly gained momentum, as a critical engagement with what constitutes our human existence, our humanity, also plays an essential role in our work at the Draiflessen Collection. We enlisted the Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde as our artistic partner because his work operates at the interface between who we are as human beings, the challenges we face every day, and how we wish and will be able to live in a still uncharted future.
Daan Roosegaarde, TOUCH, 2021 | © Draiflessen Collection/ Studio Roosegaarde, Foto: Roberto Conte

From TOUCH to SPARK

Two outstanding works of art have emerged from an intensive collaboration over this period of more than two years: TOUCH, an extensive installation exhibit created especially for the Draiflessen Collection, on display from 28.11.2021-27.02.2022, and SPARK, an innovative performance made up of thousands of biodegradable sparks of light, inspired by the light of fireflies.
A simultaneously playful, dreamlike, and sustainable work of art, SPARK will open the conference festival. Every evening at dusk, this poetic artwork will illuminate the central park in Bilbao-Biscay, attracting visitors from all over. For three nights, SPARK will invite visitors to marvel and celebrate together with its silent sparks of light moved only by the wind.

“The arts have a unique power to express ideas and emotions in new ways, to create experiences that have a profound impact on our lives, and to help us make sense of the world around us. The Arts Program at the Summit invites us all to embark on a creative journey together; a journey that I hope will activate our whole selves and continue to resonate in our hearts and minds long after the event ends.”
Manuel Bagorro, Arts Curator for The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change

“We are incredibly proud to have facilitated the creation of two artworks through this collaboration, especially during these difficult times. They could not have been better or more important than precisely in this moment of their creation and presentation.”
Dr. Corinna Otto, Director of the Draiflessen Collection 

Programme and registration VIRTUAL SUMMIT

You are cordially invited to participate virtually in the VIRTUAL WELLBEING SUMMIT .
Click here for the programme.
You can register here.
Participation is free.

The Wellbeing Project

The Wellbeing Project is an international coalition of multiple organisations working for social change. In addition to the grass-roots networks essential to any global initiative, the organisation also includes prominent foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Skoll Foundation, as well as institutions of higher education such as Georgetown University and the University of Capetown.
The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change brings leaders working at the intersection of social change and inner wellbeing together with international representatives from government and business. 
It collaborates with renowned international art institutions and partners such as the Ursula Hauser Collection, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, or the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation, and will present an extensive programme of visual and performing arts over the three days of the summit.