Cultura Circular 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 Cultura Circular 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. 

Cultura Circular 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.

Listen now

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.