Green Fest 2025 Theme Revealed: Toxicity

What is toxicity, and where does it begin?

Is it found only in polluted rivers and poisoned soil, or does it also exist within the systems that allowed things to reach this point? Has toxicity survived because of our actions, or because of our indifference and our refusal to see?

Toxicity refers to the level of harm that a substance, behavior, or environment can inflict on living beings and ecosystems. At its core, it carries the presence of damage: it harms the body, clouds the mind, drains the spirit, and disrupts entire systems. It poisons not only nature but also the way we live, the decisions we normalize, and the inequalities we pretend not to see.

As scholar Rob Nixon puts it, toxicity is a form of slow violence that is often invisible, often unspoken, and accumulates over time. It strikes the most vulnerable first and leaves lasting marks in our waters, in our cities, and in our bodies.

With the theme “Toxicity,” Green Fest XV challenges this toxic sense of normal. Not to provoke fear, but to reveal what is usually hidden. Not to create despair, but to ask:

What does it mean to detoxify as individuals, as communities, and as a planet?

Is the Earth toxic, or have we become toxic to the Earth? Can art make toxicity visible? And if it can, can it also begin to heal it?

This year, through our artistic and recreational program, we aim to bring the unseen into focus: to witness it, feel it, and take the first steps toward healing.