Art and bio-solidarity in response to AMR

2026-05-28

From April 21 to 27, the Colombian city of Medellín hosted the VII Latin American and Caribbean Congress of Community Living Cultures. The gathering brought together more than 450 artists, collectives, and organizations from 23 countries across the region to strengthen social participation in health, popular education, peacebuilding, and advocacy for cultural public policies.

For one week, neighborhoods, universities, public squares, and cultural centers were filled with music, theater, dialogue circles, artistic caravans, assemblies, games, and grassroots organizing experiences aimed at strengthening social fabric and intercultural dialogue in the face of the multiple social, environmental, and health crises affecting the region.

A new paradigm: Dancing with the invisibles

In this context, ReAct Latin America participated with Dancing with the Invisibles, an initiative that seeks to transform the way we understand antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through a new paradigm for human-microbial relationships.

The initiative is part of an ongoing process driven together with scientists, communicators, artists, social organizations, and communities to foster more harmonious human-microbial relationships by recognizing the vital role microorganisms — those invisible beings — play in sustaining planetary health.

The Medellín experience helped strengthen alliances among youth, artists, cultural organizations, communities, and academic spaces to build more participatory and democratic ways of understanding AMR as an expression of environmental imbalances, intensive production models, and social inequalities.
Health and Buen Vivir

The Congress also hosted 15 dialogue circles to share experiences related to popular education, childhood and youth participation, communication, art, and other topics. One of these spaces focused on health, where the Andean concept of Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay strongly resonated. This philosophy, promoted by Indigenous peoples across Latin America, understands health as a relationship of balance between people, communities, and nature.

Dialogue circles and artistic integration among participants from across Latin America and the Caribbean during the artistic caravan held as part of the VII Congress of Community Living Cultures.

Speaking about AMR from the perspective of Buen Vivir means understanding that human health also depends on the health of soils, water, food systems, ecosystems, and community relationships. It means recognizing that human bodies are living ecosystems and that microbial life is an essential part of the balances that sustain existence. These ideas were also explored with young people and artists during the “Microbial Body-Territories” workshop led by Argentine physician and artist Gabriel Keppl.

Addressing AMR through other languages

The gathering also included a delegation of artists from ReAct Latin America who used music and theater to bring issues such as the One Health approach and the overuse of medicines into public conversation.
The song One Single Health, composed by Ecuadorian artist Edy Segarra — member of the collective Frente Arenga Cultural and delegate of ReAct Latin America — accompanied several activities throughout the Congress and became one of the most representative expressions of the event.

Ecuadorian artists Edy Segarra and Alexis Zapata, together with Colombian artists from the Escuela Popular de Sikuris, during the performance of the song “One Single Health” on the Congress’ main stage.

“One single health, one single flag, one single health for the whole planet,” students, artists, and community members sang together in plazas, universities, and neighborhood gatherings across Medellín.

Together with Alexis Zapata and Ecuador’s Ensamble del Viento, the sounds of Andean flutes, sikus, and guitars helped bring complex reflections on planetary health, biodiversity, and antimicrobial resistance closer to audiences of all ages. At the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Antioquia, students and professors took part in activities where art opened conversations that would have been difficult to generate through academic language alone.

“Art allows people to understand from other places. Science provides essential information, but art helps people feel, remember, and make those learnings their own. Topics such as antimicrobial resistance can seem distant or difficult; however, through music, the body, play, and collective creation, they become close and meaningful. In this way, health stops being only a technical issue and becomes a shared, sensitive, and community experience,” said Alexis Zapata.

Community experiences of caring for health

Theater also created spaces for listening and collective reflection. Ecuadorian artist Evelyn Mendieta presented plays such as Who Killed the Rational Use of Medicine? and Napi, Guardian of the Forest, addressing issues such as self-medication, excessive medicine use, environmental care, and community health.

Children from Bello Oriente neighborhood, a community facing conditions of vulnerability, during the performance of the play “Napi, Guardian of the Forest” by Ecuadorian artist Evelyn Mendieta.
Activities also visited community gardens, popular kitchens, and grassroots organizing spaces in Medellín historically shaped by displacement, violence, and social resistance. In neighborhoods such as Castilla and Bello Oriente, communities shared experiences related to food sovereignty, water protection, and neighborhood organization, showing that building health also happens through territories and community networks.
Community gardens emerged as spaces of autonomy, learning, and collective care. There, conversations about AMR became linked to broader discussions on food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem protection.

Students from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Antioquia together with the dean, vice dean, and the ReAct Latin America team during the “Dancing with the Invisibles” workshop.
At the same time, the Congress held a General Assembly aimed at strengthening advocacy for cultural public policies across Latin America and the Caribbean. In this space, participants discussed proposals related to the role of community cultures in building participatory democracies, economies for life, and development models centered on caring for life, among other key issues.
Youth and children occupied a particularly important place within these discussions. Various organizations emphasized the need to recognize children and young people as political actors and agents of social transformation, capable of promoting new ways of relating to territory, health, and nature.

Children and young people during the artistic caravan sharing messages about caring for antibiotics and nature. Reflections on health and Buen Vivir ran through many of the collective debates, reaffirming the importance of building public policies that understand life from a holistic and integrative perspective grounded in the realities, interests, and contexts of communities.

A letter to rethink our relationship with the invisible

Toward the close of the gathering, artists, teachers, youth, and organizations participated in the presentation of the Letter from the Invisibles, a manifesto created by the International Reimagining Resistance Group, inviting people to rethink humanity’s relationship with microorganisms, nature, and the ways we care for life.

The reading sparked conversations about what we can learn from bacteria within our own organizations — such as resistance, adaptability, and cooperation — but also about concrete actions to confront antimicrobial resistance through social participation, intercultural dialogue, and community capacities.

ReAct Latin America’s participation in the Congress demonstrated that art is a powerful tool for education, awareness raising, and social advocacy in response to AMR. It also reaffirmed the strategic role of youth, community cultures, and territories in building more comprehensive and sustainable responses to the health and environmental challenges facing the region.

Learning to care for life also means learning to coexist, to listen, and to rebuild our relationship with the invisible world that sustains the planet.