OPEN CALL: Organismo 2026 presented by TBA21–Academy and Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Organismo: Art in Applied Critical Ecologies / January–June 2026
TBA21–Academy and Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza announce the new edition of Organismo, an experimental applied research program that calls on artists, researchers, and practitioners from across different disciplines to imagine and prototype collective strategies for fairer and regenerative futures.

About Organismo
Organismo: Art in Applied Critical Ecologies is not just a program, it’s an experimental ecosystem where art, collective research, and infrastructural activism converge. Each edition unfolds through applied case studies developed with cultural, academic, and civic partners, testing how interdisciplinary methodologies and new forms of alliances can activate tangible processes of ecological transformation.

For 2026, Organismo will be structured around five case studies, from navigating truth in the age of disinformation to rethinking tourism, climate imaginaries, ecologies of storage, and communal governance for territorial reparation. These thematic constellations serve as gateways into critical territories of our time, each supported by a network of institutions already rooted in the contexts at stake.

I: The end of the real
Theme: Building tools to navigate reality in the absence of a common truth. This case study explores how technological systems manufacture contested truths, proposing “reality forensics” as a collective toolkit to uncover the aesthetic infrastructures of persuasion and navigate environments where perception is weaponized and reality itself has become a landscape of conflict.

Facilitated by Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza / With Observatorio Complutense de la Desinformación y Retina / Led by Domestic Data Streamers.

II: Planetary Theatre of Tourism
Theme: Beyond the performative regimes of unproductivity. This case study examines tourism as a planetary performance sustained by extractive infrastructures, taking Mallorca as a stage to expose its hidden logics and to prototype post-touristic paradigms of radical unproductivity, ecological repair, and alternative forms of hospitality.

Facilitated by Casa Planas and Casa de la Arquitectura / With University of the Balearic Islands, through CRIGUST (Critical Geographies of Urbanization, Sustainability, and Touristification) / Led by Grandeza Studio.

III: Last resorts
Theme: How climate imaginaries come to matter. This case study investigates how climate imaginaries shape the politics of preparedness, tracing how forecasts, risks, and insurance schemes in the Iberian Peninsula turn speculative futures into present economic realities while questioning whose futures are being secured and whose are left behind.

Facilitated by Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) / With Oficina Nacional de Prospectiva y Estrategia / Led by Gary Zhexi Zhang and Jacob Bolton.

IV: Premium stuff
Theme: Storage ecologies and the chronologistics of conservation. This case study examines storage as a spatio-political apparatus of accumulation and control, using art collections to expose the hidden logics of conservation regimes while prototyping alternative archiving, circulating and value-making practices that resist extractive logics.

Facilitated by TBA21 / Led by Andrea Muniáin.

V: Florestania
Theme: Communal governance systems for territorial reparation. This case study draws on the Amazonian notion of Florestania—forest citizenship—to explore communal governance systems in Galicia, where collective land practices and ecological knowledge converge to repair extractive legacies and reimagine new territorial entanglements of coexistence and care.

Facilitated by Centro de Arte Fundación María José Jové / With Fundación RIA y Fundación Montescola / Led by Paulo Tavares.

Methodology: working cells
At the heart of Organismo are the Working Cells: small, dynamic collectives of up to eight participants, guided by an artistic lead and connected to an expanded network of institutions and guest experts. Over six months, these groups combine weekly online sessions with three short residencies in Spain, engaging directly with local contexts while remaining connected to a global community of peers. Thanks to their connection with institutions already engaged in the issues and territories at stake, the cells generate and apply their collective knowledge to prototype experimental proposals aimed at potential implementation.  All participants are recognized as co-authors, and outcomes are shared under Creative Commons, ensuring that collective intelligence remains at the core.

Why Organismo now
The crises of climate, disinformation, extractivism, and displacement demand new infrastructures of thought and action. Organismo proposes that artistic research can catalyze systemic change by forging alliances between institutions, communities, and ecologies. It is an invitation to take risks, to collaborate, and to intervene materially in the conditions that shape our shared world.

Enrollment & scholarships
Organismo offers two modalities: Full enrollment: participation in one of the five working cells, on-site residencies, the transversal study program and co-authorship of the prototypes. Studio enrollment: access to the transversal study module without residencies.

Up to 30 percent of places will be supported by scholarships, covering enrollment fees and, for full enrollment participants, travel and accommodation.

How to apply
Applications are open until November 9, 2025, 11:59pm CET. Access the online form through the apply button here and respond to the questions corresponding to the modality you want to apply to. If applying for a scholarship, respond to the specific question with this aim. Optional materials include a short video (max. two minutes) or a visual dossier (up to five pages).

Organismo 2026 invites those ready to unsettle comfort, weave across disciplines, and co-create ecological prototypes for the futures to come.

For full details and the complete call  or visit here.