Circular Culture in Conversation is a six part interview series celebrating environmental stewardship within arts and cultural festivals in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom. We’ll hear from several inspiring voices from the Circular Culture programme, a network of practitioners committed to exploring creative, sustainable practices in festival production. 

Our guests explore many topics related to culture and climate – from the regeneration of public spaces to the significance of community connection and Indigenous knowledge, sharing valuable insights into the challenges and benefits of creating and experiencing culture with environmental responsibility at its core. 

Circular Culture is a British Council Americas programme. It brings together more than 100 festivals from 11 countries, committed to sharing knowledge across borders to drive real change in the arts and culture sector. Each episode is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, with transcripts in all three languages. This podcast series is produced by Julie’s Bicycle. A new episode will be available every two weeks.

Find out more about the programme

Available episodes

Episode 1: IBANASCA Festival and Luciérnagas para la Paz Festival

How can public art transform spaces and drive social change? Participants from past editions of the festivals — Laura Varon (Festival IBANASCA, Colombia) and Patricia Contreras & Bárbara Martinez (Luciérnagas para la Paz, Mexico) — share how their festivals blend community engagement, gender equality and environmental awareness through lantern parades, mural painting, recycling workshops and river clean-ups, reclaiming public space for collective action.

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Episode 2: Córdoba Music Biennial, Argentina – Itinerando, Venezuela

How can we transform our relationship with the city and the environment through culture, with a focus on sustainability? In this episode of Cultura Circular, Juan Murua Palacio explores participatory public space design, circularity, and music. From Caracas, LuisRa Bergolla shares how sustainable mobility, heritage, and accessibility are reshaping the way we inhabit cities.

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Episode 3: Welcome to Freetown and GROUNDWORK

How can traditional knowledge strengthen climate action and reconnect us with community and place through festivals? Marvin George (Groundwork, Jamaica) shows how the festival bridges academia and ancestral knowledge. Keron Niles (Welcome to Freetown, Trinidad and Tobago) talks about the importance of making traditional knowledge accessible and fun at their family-friendly Carnival event.

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Episode 4: Se Rasgum Festival and Kino Beat

What challenges do we face when attempting to fix everything at once? Host Juli Baldi talks with Renée Chalu (Se Rasgum, Brazil) and Gabriel Cevallos (Kino Beat, Ecuador) about setting sustainable goals for long-term change. They explore the power of peer exchange among creative networks in the Global South and stress the need for local actions to tackle shared economic, social, and environmental challenges.

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Episode 5: Fluvial & Mi Primer Festival

How can festivals use innovation to address the climate crisis while also fostering social impact? Host Paola Moreira-Blasi chats to Oliver Knust Restucci from from Fluvial Musica in Chile and Beatriz Cisneros Contreras from Mi Primer Festival in Peru about how their festivals respond to the social, environmental, and economic challenges their audiences face.

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BONUS EPISODE: Festival Internacional de Cine de Isla Verde

How can we work flexibly with communities to turn ideas into real action? In this episode, Paola talks with Yociel Marrero Báez from Isla Verde Festival (Cuba), a film festival focused on Caribbean island life and environment, highlighting solutions. Yociel shares how they adapt, listen, and involve communities in designing the festival, respecting each place’s unique needs and voices.

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Hosts 

  1. Spanish episodes: Paola Moreira is the CEO and founder of Pragmatic Pod Limited, specialising in podcast production that combines storytelling, technology, and creativity. With over a decade of experience and two Latin Podcast Awards for her intercultural podcast Perfiles e Influencias, Paola is committed to the dissemination of cultural and social topics and explores the relationship between culture and creativity, giving voice to impactful initiatives. 
  2. Portugese episode: Juli Baldi is a music researcher, journalist, and creative director at Bananas Music, a music curation company for brands. She is also the founder of Mapa dos Festivais, a platform dedicated to mapping and analyzing music festivals in Brazil. At Mapa, she created a special editorial section to discuss the intersection of festivals and climate issues and curated and moderated panels on the topic at the latest edition of SIM São Paulo. 
  3. English episode: Tenaya King is a Climate Change and Sustainability Specialist at Julie’s Bicycle, with experience in environmental sustainability, public policy and climate resilience. She’s passionate about creating change through cultural events, building resilience through the arts, and using connection and community to address the climate crisis.