Representing the 2084 Imagined Futures from the South program, Martín Gromez visited Medellín and strengthened alliances including the PACCSA Plan of the Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.

As part of an academic, cultural, and community agenda, Argentine architect and artist Martín Gromez visited the city of Medellín in March 2026. The visit was organized under the invitation of the Plan de Adaptación al Cambio Climático desde Salud Ambiental —PACCSA— (Climate Change Adaptation Plan from Environmental Health) of the Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA). Centered on the inauguration of the exhibition “Detectives of the Future” which was the culmination of a year of collaboration with the University of Antioquia through its Faculty of Public Health in collaboration with the Antioquia Scout Region. This resulted in activities with the Scouts captured in 30 videos that you can see in our museum and constitutes the material that is exhibited at the Museo de la Vida (Museum of Life). The visit helped establish connections for future international collaborations, disseminate the principles of the 2084 program, and delve into topics such as the convergence of knowledge around art, social inclusion, architecture, and public health.

The exhibition hosted at La Naviera building is free and open to the public until the end of the second semester.

Below is a recap of the most notable moments of this visit:

Inclusion and Urban Memory
Saturday, March 21

The agenda began at Uincluye, el café inclusivo de la UdeA. UdeA’s inclusive café. There, together with Dr. Eliana Martínez Herrera, Gisela Sofía Posada and Andrés Alzate (both from UdeA’s Cultura Centro Program), and other professors, Martín participated in the presentation of the UIncluye social inclusion project. The day concluded with an immersion into local historical memory through a guided tour of the city center led by historian Jorge Restrepo.

Territory, Health, and the Tomorrow of Yesterday
Tuesday, March 24

The morning began with a tour of the Parque de la Vida, a space of more than 4,000 square meters dedicated to citizen dialogue and social transformation through health. Later, the Park of Life Coordinator, Juan David Castro Quintero, accompanied Martín on a guided visit to UdeA’s University Campus. The tour revealed a place full of culture, enthusiasm, resilience, and academic excellence.

In the afternoon, together with Eliana Martínez Herrera, Kamila Giraldo Quintero, and Juan David Castro Quintero, a strategic meeting was held with Dr. Pablo Javier Patiño Grajales (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine) and Dr. Edwin Rolando González Marulanda (Dean of the National Faculty of Public Health), aimed at coordinating future international collaboration.

The day concluded at the emblematic Paraninfo of the San Ignacio Building with the panel discussion “Inhabiting Urban Centers: The Tomorrow of Yesterday.” This space proposed crossing the question of futures with art, architecture, and public health to imagine friendly and sustainable cities. The panel featured:

· Martín Gromez (Argentina – 2084 program, OLA The New School): Exploring urban dwelling through social involvement, everyday micro-actions, and art.

· Hugo René Mora Cruz (Medellín, Colombia): Physician and PhD in Public Health, focused on ancestral knowledge and territorial harmony.

· Kamila Giraldo Quintero (Moderadora, UdeA): Innovation and social transformation manager..

The event, held within UdeA’s outreach initiatives and in synergy with partner institutions such as the University of Guadalajara and the University of Medellín, analyzed the relationship between inhabiting the city, historical memory, and public health, and explored how the urban past influences future planning.

Media, Planetary Art, and Community
Wednesday, March 25

The final day of activities combined artistic outreach and community dialogue:

· Opening of the exhibition “Planetary Futures: Detectives of the Future”: In the morning, interviews with local media were followed by the official inauguration of the exhibition at the Museum of Life—an initiative inviting reflection on climate and urban realities from the Faculty of Public Health, in collaboration with the Antioquia Scout Region and the 2084 Imagined Futures from the South program.

The Planetary Futures for the Care of Life project invited children, youth, and adults from the Antioquia Scout movement to imagine how we can care for life in the future. This initiative is part of the twentieth call of UdeA’s University Bank of Extension Programs and Projects —Buppe—.

From this project emerged 30 future imaginations, digitized and exhibited at the 2084 Museum of Futures of The New School’s Observatory on Latin America and in a temporary room at UdeA’s Museum of Life, as part of the “Detectives of the Future” exhibition..

“What the project leaves, in terms of products, is an open exhibition room for the Museum of Life, in dialogue with citizens and city actors, as well as the digitized history of the process in the 2084 Futures Museum,” highlights Professor Martínez. In terms of capacities, she adds, it leaves “a strengthened team, gaining confidence and potential for new knowledge management challenges, new routes of inspiration for young researchers and city talents, and collaborative learning methodologies for the social co-production of knowledge.”

· Talk on University Radio: In the afternoon, Gromez joined the microphones of the program “Red 5/7” on UdeA’s Cultural Radio Station, hosted by journalist Alexander Otálvaro, to discuss the scope of his visit. He shared experiences from the 2084 program and his perspective on the power of imagination to transform reality.

· Scout Closing Event: The agenda concluded by sharing experiences of leadership and territory with youth and adults of the Kraal Night of the Antioquia Scout Region. Around a thousand members of the community gathered, reaffirming and strengthening their commitments to improving the world they inhabit.

This itinerary reaffirms the commitment of the Latin American Observatory (OLA), The New School, together with the University of Antioquia, to social outreach projects that connect academia with planetary improvement through the awareness and mobilization of Latin American regional actors in their pursuit of building inclusive and sustainable futures.

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