Case Study
Cruce de Caminos
How a performance became a space where science, culture and tradition could think together.
The Relationship
Equal ways of understanding the world
Scientific knowledge, artistic practice and cultural memory are often treated as separate conversations, each with its own room, audience and language.
This project explored what became possible when they were invited into dialogue as equal ways of understanding the world.
The Context
RedPOP 2019
Fundación Ciudad del Saber and SENACYT hosted the RedPOP congress in Panama for the first time, bringing together science communicators from across Latin America under the theme ¡Vive la Ciencia!
The congress closed with this free public performance at El Ateneo. Its own script named the congress and the questions at stake; the framing grew from inside the gathering it was written for.
Bridges' Contribution
Mirar · Comprender · Cuidar
Bridges designed an immersive performance that treated science communication as a relational experience. Music, poetry, narrative and visual language moved the audience from observation, to understanding, to care.
The work opened in near-total darkness, with the audience's path through the room lined with words. Mario Benedetti, Michio Kaku and songs including El Escaramujo, Torre de Babel, Tierra Nuestra and Cuídame formed one continuous text.
The piece named this crossroads encrumiradas: a meeting created through the act of looking.
What Emerged
An ecology of knowledge
Relationships. Scientists, science communicators and artists shared one closing event as a common room for knowledge.
Ideas. Comprender: una ecología de saberes framed understanding as something built between disciplines, with care as knowledge's natural conclusion.
Relational Insight. Looking leads to understanding; understanding leads to care. Science, culture and tradition become stronger when none has to wait its turn.