LIPSea-M is an art-science initiative that brings together the CINEMA research group at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Microbial Ecology & Evolution Lab at IBE (CSIC-UPF) to develop an expanded film project about the climate crisis in Mediterranean marine ecosystems.
Following the lab's research on the tropicalization of the Catalan Mediterranean and its effects on coral holobionts, filmmakers Santiago Fillol, Ariadna Cordal, and Anna Mundet join Javier del Campo and the lab team on scientific expeditions — documenting coral sampling campaigns, underwater dives, and field laboratory work. The goal is to build a shared visual archive of "potential images": those still locked inside microscopes and sequencers, waiting for a cinematic and sensory translation that can reach the broader public.
Expeditions have taken place at the Cap de Creus Natural Park (Girona, October 2025) and at the CARMABI Research Center in Curaçao (February 2026), where the team compared Mediterranean tropicalization dynamics with Caribbean coral ecosystems. The project is funded by the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation and hosted by ARSENAL, UPF's knowledge transfer ecosystem.
Foc Creuat, art i ciència al punt de mira was an exhibition at the Centre d'Arts Santa Mònica in Barcelona (February 2011), part of the broader "Pensar Art Actuar Ciència" (Think Art Act Science) programme led by Josep Perelló (UPF) and Irène Hediger (Zurich University of the Arts).
Young visual artists from the UB Master in Artistic Productions and Research spent a year embedded in the laboratories of seven Barcelona scientists, studying their research, extracting its essence, and reinterpreting it as art installations. Six collaborative works emerged from this sustained dialogue between art and science.
Javier del Campo — then a microbiologist at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) — collaborated with Mallorcan artist Lara Fluxà on the piece des-Nivell. Reflecting on the experience, del Campo noted: "[The project] made me think about what the limitations of science are. Artists enjoy a great deal of freedom to carry out their work. Scientists, on the other hand, are constrained." The project was conceived by Joan Duran and supported by the Societat Catalana de Biologia.