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MDEFest 2025

The Festival by the Master in Design for Emergent Futures is a one-day showcase of experimental projects, interactive installations, and live activations by graduating students. It’s a vibrant celebration of design as a tool for transformation—where alternative presents are explored, futures are prototyped, communities engaged and new systems imagined.

MDEFest 2025 – My knee hurts, tomorrow it will rain is the 5th edition of the festival organized by the Master in Design for Emergent Futures, celebrating the projects of the MDEF students. The event will take place the 19th of June 2025, at Tres Xemeneies, in Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona.

The festival activities, ranging from workshops and panels to interactive installations, aim to promote future literacy, empower the collective force of creatives, and create greater consciousness about the pressing urgency of the climate and social crisis.

The project activations will be organized in 6 thematic clusters:

• My knee hurts, tomorrow it will matter more
• My knee hurts, tomorrow we will stand again
• My knee hurts, tomorrow my body will tell
• My knee hurts, tomorrow we will lose common sense
• My knee hurts, tomorrow we will know
• My knee hurts, tomorrow we will shift the story

My knee hurts, tomorrow it will matter more

What if materials could be an active part of the design process and not just an outcome? We envision this future by challenging our relationship with materials through the lenses of science, culture and ecology.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule
15:00- 15:30 Materialchemy by Belen Comotto
15:30 – 16:00 Material Dialogue by Maria Vittoria Colombo
16:00- 16:30 Lucifer by Carlos Silveira
16:00- 17:00 Material Ethnographies by Maithili Sathe
16:30-17:30 poly:eutopia by Paula Rydel

My knee hurts, tomorrow we stand again

Through mass production and global industrialization, objects in our lives have been reduced to profit-driven products destined to become obsolete. We are looking back in time to reconnect with our legacy and forward to a material second-life to shift the conversation about consumption in our present.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule

13:30-14:30 Darned Circuits by Lucretia Field
14:00-15:00 The Design Coefficient by Mohit Chopra
15:00-15:30 WalkBack by Auxence Daillen

My knee hurts, tomorrow my body will tell

Your body is not a problem to solve, but a place to come home to. This cluster invites a shift; from control to communion, from silence to deep listening. Through sweat, microbes, and skin, we explore how honoring the body’s intelligence can guide us toward generative, healing futures.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule
11:30 – 13:00 Pupa by Ziming Shang
11:45- 12:15 sweat matters by Javier Serra
12:15- 13:15 The secret life of our gut by Kevin Enriquez

My knee hurts, tomorrow we will lose common sense

A series of collective hands-on activities that challenge the systems we live in. The cluster explores how we can collaborate within alternative creative frameworks that enable more conscious relationships between people, ecosystems, and technology.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule
11:00 – 11:30 Cancel~lat by Ramon Prat
11:30 – 12:30 Nex(t)o by Flavio Grimaldi – Minga by David Granizo
12:30 – 13:00 A disobedient citizen by Andrea Santi
13:30 – 15:30 Chop by Maximilian Becht

My knee hurts, tomorrow we will know

This cluster investigates how communities interact with technology, learning, and shared knowledge, using diverse approaches, from digital making and AI to education and local data practices, to explore how emerging tools can be reimagined within cultural and social contexts. It serves as a space for experimentation and empowerment, where each activity contributes to broader conversations about collective intelligence, local infrastructures, and community-driven futures.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule
17:00 – 18:00 – Local AI Workshop – Marius Schairer
18:00-19:00 – AI & Making Manifesto by Carmen Robres
18:30-19:00 – Machines of Care by Dhrishya Ramadass

My knee hurts, tomorrow we will shift the story

This cluster explores the dynamic relationship between human bodies and perception through interactive experiences. Both projects examine how we relate to and understand ourselves through different forms of engagement with control through gestures.

Register to the Activity HERE

Schedule
14:30 – 15:30 – AURIS by Manuja Agnihotri
17:00 – 18:00 – ArsPostFaber by Jorge Muñoz

We hope to see you all there!