Students from Oeiras participate in the Ars Electronica Festival in Austria

Oeiras has 7 students participating in the Ars Electronica Festival held in Linz, Austria, with an innovative project that combines arts and sciences in thinking about a sustainable interplanetary future.

The Space Messengers project began 3 years ago as a partnership between Escola Secundária Sebastião e Silva and Escola Integrada de Artes de Taos in New Mexico, with Professors Cristina Pinho and Ana Carla Oliveira, Artistic Director Agnes Chavez and the creative team.

Space Messengers is an immersive mixed reality project that brings together students from all over the world in courses lasting over 6 weeks, where they discuss with scientists, philosophers and artists the big questions of humanity and the future.

At the end of these weeks of workshops, all the artworks and projects created are worked on, culminating in a future art installation. This installation was presented in recent years at the International Festival of Sciences and Arts (FIC.a), bringing together the students who created the project Rafael Palau (STEMarts Coordinator), Mafalda Giorgolo (Ambassador), Guilherme Verdillo (Ambassador) and the new Ambassadors Maria Frasão, Giovanni Verdillo, Felipe Proenza and Francisco Geronimo. These students have the possibility of becoming ambassadors of STEMarts (the international non-profit organization responsible for the project) and thus coordinators.

The installation was invited to participate in the Ars Electronica Festival. The STEMarts team together with the Municipality of Oeiras and Escola Secundária Sebastião e Silva made this trip possible. The students are accompanied by the professor. Miguel Pentedo from the group’s management, Elizabeth Brigadero from the Office of Science and Innovation of the Municipality of Oeiras and the professor in charge of the project Ana Carla Oliveira.

These students had the opportunity to work directly with CERN physicist Steven Goldfarb, who participates in one of the stations to answer visitors’ questions as Avatar, and with the Space Messengers Project’s creative team, including the Austrian group OMAi.

To participate directly in the project from all over the world, simply access the live link which will be held live in Linz, Austria, on Friday afternoon, between 5pm and 7pm.