Spanish Pavilion Exhibition

Only a distributed intelligence and universal awareness about the environmental crises we are living through can move this world toward a new sustainable life. Based on this, the Spanish exhibition is centered on the relationship between sustainability and collective intelligence. These concepts are transformed into an experiential didactic journey, breaking the boundaries between design, art, and digital tools. On the one hand, visitors will grasp the richness of the Spanish cultural legacy and on the other hand, they will get a deep understanding of natural biodiversity, the innovation in scientific and business research, and the Spanish commitment to sustainable development. The exhibition is divided into two distinct floors. The ground floor of the exhibition space has an analogic and mechanical approach, while the lower floor is a triumph for cutting edge technologies, and interactive content and will show relevant examples of how Spain joins the 2030 agenda with innovative projects for a sustainable future. The ground floor consists of a cluster of open plazas where a series of installations take place. We synthesize some of the most relevant contributions of Spanish culture to the World and highlight its relationship with the Arab culture. These diverse plazas are delimited by circular murals, which contextualize and deepen the narrative thread of the exhibition. The visitor will be offered a tour of some of the Spanish cultural milestones, from the Hispano-Arab legacy of chess and the Spanish overseas expeditions to the importance of Spanish as a global language, passing through the heritage of Arab architecture in Spain and the pioneering work of the Nobel prize neurologist Ramón y Cajal. Finally, they emerge into a techno-forest, that we see as a laboratory of the future, in other words, a high-tech forest named “Bosque de la Inteligencia”. The trees of the forest have been manufactured by 3D printing PLA, a bioplastic polymer made with corn dextrose (sugar), mixed with PureTech a natural mineral compound that has the property of capturing and mineralizing some of the main gases of the greenhouse effect and pollutants that we find in the atmosphere, CO2, nitrogen oxides (NOx), and volatile organic compounds (VOC). This landscape is capable of producing oxygen and food through photosynthesis, a series of photo-bioreactors with microalgae such as spirulina and chlorella have been designed. Micro-algae increase oxygen levels reduce global warming and can help prevent the consequences of climate change in the future. Besides the fact that algae produce more oxygen than other plants, they can also be used for the production of biofuels and protein-rich foods. Therefore, this floor has been conceived as a techno landscape with a natural behavior, a beautiful scenography that immerses visitors in an extraordinary world where digital and physical dimensions produce novel experiences. This landscape gives rise to a narrative backbone to tackle 3 main topics where Spain is playing a key role: preservation of Biodiversity the balanced use of its resources, and the collective intelligence with special emphasis on Spanish entrepreneurship and start-ups addressing these 3 issues.