Santiago Alba Rico
Santiago Alba Rico is a writer and essayist and studied Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He was a scriptwriter during the 1980s for the legendary television programme La Bola de Cristal and has published more than 20 books on politics, philosophy and literature, as well as three children’s stories and a play. His works include the essays Las reglas del caos (1995 Anagrama prize finalist), Vendrá la realidad y nos encontrará dormidos (Hiru, 2006), Leer con niños (2007, re-published by Literatura Random House, 2015), Capitalismo y nihilismo (Akal, 2007), El naufragio del hombre (Hiru, 2009), Noticias (Caballo de Troya, 2010) and Penúltimos días (Catarata, 2016). Since 1988 he has lived in the Arab world, having translated into Spanish work by Egyptian poet Naguib Surur and Iraqi novelist Mohammed Jydair. His latest books are Ser o no ser (un cuerpo) (Seix Barral, 2017), Todo el pasado por delante (Catarata, 2017) and Nadie está seguro con un libro en las manos (Catarata, 2018). In 2019, under the title Última hora, he collected all his radio collaborations with the Carne Cruda radio show. He regularly collaborates with different media outlets (Público, Cuarto Poder, CTXT, Ara, eldiario.es and El País, among others). His latest book is titled España (Lengua de Trapo, 2021).
Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera carried out her studies at the Escuela Elemental de Artes Plásticas 20 de Octubre and at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, as well as at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also taught between 2003 and 2010. Her work is based on her interpretation of political and social issues. In order to define her artistic practices, she has developed concepts such as behaviour art with a focus on the limits of language and the body confronted with the reaction and behaviour of her spectators. Additionally, she proposes a useful art to influence the real transformation of certain political and legal aspects of society. Bruguera’s work focuses on issues of power and control and questions the present context in her native Cuba. She created the Cátedra Arte de Conducta in Havana in 2002 and the Asociación de Arte Útil in 2011 as platforms for encounter and the implementation of her projects. In 2016, she inaugurated the Instituto de Artivismo Hannah Arendt (INSTAR), with the mission of creating an institutional platform in which Cubans can learn about their civil rights, promote critical and informed discussions, and form part of an alternative political space. She has taken part in international artistic events such as the documenta in Kassel and the Venice, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Havana biennials, and has exhibited in museums, galleries and art centres such as the Tate Modern, the Art Institute of Chicago and the New Museum in New York, among others.
Olga Bryukhovetska
Olga Bryukhovetska, PhD, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine), where she teaches courses on film theory and visual culture. Together with the artist Sean Snyder and a group of Ukrainian intellectuals she co-founded Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv) where she worked till 2012. As a researcher in visual culture she participated in numerous projects such as Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (2008 – 2012), Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (2010), Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 (2008 – 2016). Her research focuses on political dimensions of visuality and cultural integration traumatic experience. She publishes in Ukrainian and English, her English language texts appeared in Art-It, Red Thread, KinoKultura, Apparatus: Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, Frieze, and L’Internationale. Her most recent text addresses the war in Ukraine, Maidan and empowerment of the people: ‘Time and Again ’https://www.internationaleonline.org/opinions/1091_time_and_again
Hamlet Lavastida
Hamlet Lavastida explores the relationship of language and ideology in his art practice. A graduate of Havana’s University of the Arts and Tania Bruguera’s Taller de Conducta. His work arose from the need to create an objective criterion for certain hidden areas of the implementation, administration and functioning of state political practices in Cuba. Central to Lavastida’s artistic practice is the re appropriation of texts, images and symbols, as well as political speeches and ideological terminologies, which he questions critically within the framework of his work. The relevant factor is their reinterpretation using the same or a similar format to that in which they were originally created revealing the absurdity of these historic brands and at the same time examines and demystifies the tools of propaganda. Issues such as cultural policy, design, public sphere, archaeology and historiography are addressed from different media such as video, collages, performances, public interventions and installations. Hamlet’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the Documenta 15 in Kassel, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, the Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Poland and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany. His critical vision of his country’s history and current affairs is perceived by Cuban authorities to be a threat to national security. He currently lives and works in Berlin.
Gemma Pinyol-Jiménez
Gemma Pinyol-Jiménez is Head of Migration Policies and Diversity at Instrategies and associate researcher at GRITIM-UPF. She is an expert for the Council of Europe in the framework of the Intercultural Cities Project and coordinator of the RECI-Network of Intercultural Cities. She was director of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration and project manager at the Council of Europe with the C4i Communication for Integration project. She is an expert appointed to different reports for the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, and has also participated in several European projects. She is an associate professor at the UAB and UPF.
Her main lines of work are the policies and legal resources on migration and asylum of the European Union, the foreign dimension of migration policies and integration and diversity policies, as well as the multilevel governance of migration, asylum and inclusivity issues.
She is doctor in Political Science for Universidad Complutense de Madrid and she has a degree in Political Science from the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, a master’s in International Studies and a master’s in Political Analysis from the UOC.
Among her most recent publications, it is worth highlighting “La inmigración en España hoy. Reflexiones más allá de la pandèmia”, in Documentos Alternativas, 213/2022; “Dinámicas migratorias, espacios multiculturales y retos multinivel”, in Vidas en transición. (Re)construir la ciudadanía social, 2021; “Migraciones en la Unión Europea en tiempos de sindemia”, in Anuario CIDOB de la Inmigración 2020.
Remei Sipi
Remei Sipi was born in Rebola (on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea) and arrived in Spain in 1968 to study in Figueres (Girona). She subsequently moved to Barcelona, where she has lived ever since. Graduate in Early Childhood Education, expert in Gender and Development (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and co-founder of the E’Waiso Ipola and Yemanjá associations, she not only stands out for her dedication to oral literature and essay writing, but also for her militancy in the association movement of African and immigrant women. She is president of the Federation of Guinean Associations of Catalonia, among others. Her work has earned her various awards. She founded and directs the Mey publishing house, a benchmark for Equatorial Guinean literature, and as an author has published, among other works, Las mujeres africanas: incansables creadoras de estrategias (1997); Inmigración y género. El caso de Guinea Ecuatorial (2004); Les dones migrades: apunts, històries, reflexions, aportacions (2005); Cuentos africanos (2005); El secreto del bosque. Un cuento africano(2007); Baiso, ellas y sus relatos (2015), together with Nina Camó and Melibea Obono; Voces femeninas de Guinea Ecuatorial. Una antología (2015); Mujeres africanas. Más allá del tópico de la jovialidad (2018), and Nos lo contaron nuestros mayores: cuentos Bubis (2020). She has also been a speaker at different universities in Spain as well as in England, the United States, Latin America and Africa.
Sean Snyder
Sean Snyder is artist. He uses various analog and digital media to interrogate urban and media space. His present work re-traces empirical evidence and perceptual information in the specific space and time of its production. His research is based on ISO rules, forensic protocols and uses binary digits. Recent solo exhibitions Aspect Ratio / Dispositif, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, France, Aurora Borealis, Galerie Neu, Berlin, Germany, Room 11 (Latitude: 78.223, Longitude: 15.646), Longyearbyen Folkebibliotek / Kunsthall Svalbard, Norway; Exhibit: NNKM.DEP.0199, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø, Norway; Room 11 (Virtually Real), Guttormsgaards Arkiv, Blaker, Norway.
David Abril
David Abril has a degree in Philosophy and Humanities and a doctorate in Education, and is a specialist in Epistemologies of the Global South. He is Professor of Sociology at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and Secretary of the Department of Philosophy and Social Work. He is a member of the INTER research group on intercultural education (UNED) and also of the Inequalities, Gender and Public Policies group (UIB), and is a researcher at the Social Observatory of the Balearic Islands (OSIB). In the professional field he has worked in the socio-educational field within the framework of various non-profit entities, and in the political field he has carried out both representation and management responsibilities. He is Head of Education at the Darder-Mascaró foundations and collaborates with various social platforms, such as Fòrum de la Societat Civil per a la Reconstrucció de les Illes Balears and Mercat Social de les Illes Balears, among others. In addition to his scientific production (focused on issues of citizenship and education, participation and inequalities, among others), he is also a columnist for the Ara Balears newspaper and editor of Illa Global.