Islas del Futuro / Islands of the Future

Islands have never ceased to exert a peculiar seduction in the individual and collective imaginary as it shows their diverse representations in art and literature but also their success in the contemporary tourism industry. When María Zambrano was in exile and tried to familiarize herself with the Caribbean Islands, she wrote: `The role of the islands is to be a magnet that attracts the imagination towards something primary, not yet corrupted by human nature ́. This tendency to locate the most idyllic places on the sea borders, remains today in the collective imagination and, when thinking about summer or vacations, we usually direct the mind to the mental construction of the islands, in which we imagine that happiness, calm, harmony are possible with the sunset as a backdrop.

Conceived as a series of events that take place in the Canary Islands between July 4 and July 26, 2019, the `Islands of the Future ́ Festival represents the opportunity to intensify thinking and public debate around the condition of insularity, fostering a revealing crossroads between data, ideas and practices from different island geographical areas and from different disciplines such as economics, tourism, visual arts and architecture.

Originated in a research promoted by the think tank Crowplan, the Festival is also a scenario of anticipations as it will suggest some strategic lines of action that may serve as knowledge and inspiration for eventual programs and public policies in the sense of preserving the insular culture in the context of sustainable development.