Last May, el Círculo It brought together cultural institutions from across the country for a series of workshops to explore the possibility of creating a network of climate shelters in cultural spaces. Many questions arose from those workshops, but two permeated all the discussions: what role can culture play in the face of the climate emergency, and how can cultural spaces contribute to strengthening community ties and life in our cities? 

To further fuel this conversation, we will have a lecture by Eric Klinenberg, one of the sociologists who has best understood the relationship between climate crisis, city and community.

Author of Palaces of the People , a now essential book on the role of social infrastructure in building more cohesive and democratic societies, Klinenberg is also the author of Heat Wave , the pioneering study on the heat wave that hit Chicago in 1995. In it, he demonstrated that, in the face of a climate crisis, survival depends not only on a city's physical infrastructure, but also on the strength of its social bonds.

Both the presentation of the conclusions of those working days and the conference by Eric Klinenberg will take place in the Climate Refuge, as an invitation to continue thinking about what role culture and its institutions can play in building more livable, resilient and open cities.