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We produce and curate great art and ambitious projects
Looking Forward develops interdisciplinary projects that move across exhibitions, research, publishing, residencies, digital platforms, and public programmes. We work with institutions, artists, and communities to explore how curating can respond to contemporary cultural, ecological, and social urgencies.
Our work is structured around long-term collaborations, flexible formats, and shared authorship, adapting to different scales, contexts, and challenges. From field-based projects and experimental pedagogies to strategic consultancy and critical publishing, each strand contributes to a wider commitment to rethinking how culture is created, organised, and shared.
New publication: Artistic Practices as Environmental Research
Publication of a new chapter by Looking Forward’s founding director, Carolina Lio-Rodrigues, in Sustainable Design, Art, and Innovation: A New Paradigm on Creative Practice, published by Springer and edited by Muhammad Nawaz Tunio, Hasim Altan, Shlagha Agarwal and Marina Checa Olivas. “Artistic Practices as Environmental Research: Designing and Implementing Public Engagement for Sustainability” explores how socially engaged art can operate not simply as commentary on the clim
Slow Disasters Study Circle: Land and Food Transitions
Slow Disasters: Land and Food Transitions is an online study circle that creates space for dialogue about the transformations shaping land and food today, as part of the Mexican edition of the Slow Disasters project. How do we inhabit the changes currently moving through our territories and food systems? We invite you to participate in Slow Disasters: Land and Food Transitions, a study circle that opens a space for dialogue in the face of gradual, yet increasingly profound,
Slow Disasters in Oaxaca: Thinking and Cooking for the Soil
Launched in Santo Domingo Tomaltepec in Oaxaca, Pensar y Cocinar represents the Mexican chapter of Slow Disasters, a long-term, multi-continental project and methodology by British artist Andrew Merritt. Since August 2025, the project has been applying Merritt's methodology of using art and food to respond to "slow disasters", the gradual, often invisible processes of socio-ecological degradation. In the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, these processes manifest as soil erosion, wat
Report of Food for Landscapes: Recipes for Slow Disasters
During Design Week South Africa (23–26 October), Food for Landscapes: Recipes for Slow Disasters unfolded in Cape Town as an exhibition and meeting point for thinking, tasting, and talking about how landscapes and people might heal. The project marks the first South African activation of a long-term, multi-continental project and methodology by British artist Andrew Merritt, which uses art, food, and ecological research to address “slow disasters”, a term coined by Merritt to
Food for Landscapes at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden
The talk takes place during the anniversary event organised by the indigenous nursery and botanical studio Happy by Nature. As part of the Slow Disasters programme, artist Andrew Merritt and wild food expert Loubie Rusch (Local Wild and Sustainability Institute) will present Food for Landscapes – Recipes for Slow Disasters on Saturday, 18 October, at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town. The talk takes place during the anniversary event organised by the indigenous nurse
"Food for Landscapes: Recipes for Slow Disasters" at Design Week Cape Town
An exhibition and public session in Cape Town, resulting from a Field Kitchen activation in the Lynedoch Valley, South Africa. Exhibition Venue Church House, 1 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town Exhibition Opening Hours 23 - 25 October 2025 10:00 - 17:00 26 October 2025 10:00 - 16:00 Interactive Session with the Public 26 October 2025 14:00 - 15:30 (RSVP here) Field Kitchen is part of Field Hospital, a methodology being activated across three continents. It uses art, food, and
Study Group at Delfina Foundation: Narrative Report
The first Slow Disasters Study Group took place at the Delfina Foundation in London on 29 May 2025. Hosted by artist and designer Andrew Merritt, curator Carolina Lio, and artist Emilio Hernández Martínez, with recorded contributions from Dr Nik Petek-Sargeant (University of Cambridge) and Maya Marshak (Sustainability Institute, South Africa), the session marked the launch of a transnational conversation on the ethics and practice of repair. Participants explored how Field Ho
Field Hospital: Unearthing Study Group at Delfina Foundation
On Thursday, 29 May 2025, from 18:30 to 20:30, the Delfina Foundation in London will host the inaugural gathering of the Field Hospital project. This event invites participants to explore how we can collectively unearth the ghosts of degraded landscapes and consider what it means to feed a place back to life. Join us for the first public event of Field Hospital, a long-term transdisciplinary project that acts as a nursery for land restoration in zones of slow disaster — a ter
SCIN Conference 2025, Museum of the Future, Dubai: Artistic Practices as Environmental Research
At the SCIN Conference 2025, hosted at the Museum of the Future, Abu Dhabi University, and Istituto Marangoni Dubai, Carolina Lio, Director of Looking Forward, presented her paper, "Artistic Practices as Environmental Research." Cooking Sections, CLIMAVORE: On Tidal Zones, Isle of Skye, Scotland (2017). Courtesy of the artists and Visible. In her presentation, she explored how creative practices can serve as catalysts for ecological restoration and social change, drawing on c
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