Tomás Criado

Anthropologist and interdisciplinary researcher.

His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection between anthropology and science, technology and society (STS), with a particular interest in urban and environmental issues. He is currently a Ramón y Cajal senior researcher at the Open University of Catalonia. In his ethnographic and collaborative research, he has investigated different forms of material politics and the politics of knowledge in environments where the concept of “care” is included in urban intervention: either as a form of technoscientific activism (democratising knowledge, design practices and infrastructures) or as a means to articulate ecologies of support for diverse urban life (accessible and age-friendly urbanism; urban heat mitigation schemes). Since 2024, he has been helping to run the Department of Umbrology, a speculative workspace inspired by artistic methodologies, dedicated to the study of and intervention in the urban life of shade.

Planet

Life in the Shade

Tomás Criado

To relearn how to live in today’s cities, we must push aside the savage power of the Sun, placing shade at the centre.