Researchers

Pilar Bonet

Pilar Bonet Julve is a researcher and teacher. She has a degree in Medieval History and a PhD in Art History from the University of Barcelona, where she teaches contemporary art and design, art criticism and curating. She is interested in the overflowing and political spaces of art: art and public space, art and design, art and feminism, art and mediumship, artist’s editions. A specialist in the life and work of the Catalan medium and artist Josefa Tolrà, she follows the trail of visionary women as an experience of new humanity. She has recently presented exhibitions on visionary women: Josefa Tolrà and Julia Aguilar, Les Bernardes de Salt (Girona); ALMA. Mediums and Visionaries, Es Baluard Museum, Palma (Mallorca); The medium and the poet. An astral conversation between Josefa Tolrà and Joan Brossa, Fundació Brossa de Barcelona. Writing and editing pacifies his soul. She manages the research group Visionary Women Art.

                                  @pilarbonetjulve (instagram) 
                                  @josefatolra (instagram)
                                  josefatolra.org/  

Sandra Martinez

Sandra Martínez has a degree in Art History. She combines teaching in the humanistic and artistic branch in high school education, with the study, documentation and research of artists who are outside the traditional circuit of art. Researcher and documentarian of the work of Josefa Tolrà since 2012, she is part of the Josefa Tolrà Association and the Visionary Women Research Group, focusing her interest on the study of creative, fluidic and enigmatic women who are outside historiography traditional art, working to give visibility, both inside and outside the classroom, to female creativity.

Nekane Aramburu

Nekane Aramburu is a cultural manager, museologist and curator. She has a degree in Art History and a master’s degree in Museology with an extensive international career linked to contemporary creation. She specializes in the analysis of the management and construction of cultural policies and visual production. She develops thematic projects from the direction of cultural programs, management of art centers and museums (Espacio Ciudad 1999/2010, Museo Es Baluard 2013/2019 among others) or research focused on transmedia practices and cultural ecosystems, as well as a strong feminist commitment and with education: Collective Archives and Alternatives on independent management, Faces B of video art in Spain; Matériaux Inmateriel on the mechanisms of environmental responsibility in the collections and management of FRACs in France; Mujeres Santas, a large project in Latin America focused on popular santas, a study in progress on postcolonialism that delves into issues of gender and environmental and social responsibility.

Irene Llàcer

Her interest moves between research in contemporary art and its relationship with their audiences, the design and coordination of mediation projects or curating and management exhibitions. She is art historian, specialist in contemporary art, she has a degree in Art History and a degree in History from the Universitat de València, is graduated from Máster Oficial de Estudis Avançats en Història de l’Art and del Máster en Arte Actual: Análisis y Gestión from Universitat de Barcelona. She is currently developing her PHD focus on the use of women’s memory in contemporary artistic practices. He has worked and designed mediation and public projects for institutions such as the IVAM, Bombas Gens Centre d’Art (València) o el MuVIM (València) and she has curated and coordinated exhibition projects and publications for museums and art centers such as Es Baluard Museum (Palma), the Drassanes del Grau de València or the Centre Cultural La Nau (València). She is a founding member of the Equip351 and nowadays works at the IVAM, as manager of education and public programs, where she coordinates, designs and carries out public and mediation projects in order to connect contemporary artistic creation with its audiences.

Maria José González Madrid 

I am a professor of Art History (modern and contemporary) at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona and researcher at ADHUC -Centre de Recerca Teoria, Gènere, Sexualitat i de la Càtedra Unesco Dones, Desenvolupament i Cultures.

My research focuses on the study of the artist Remedios Varo, about whom I organized the two International Seminars Remedios Varo (UB, 2008 and 2009) and co-edited the book Remedios Varo. Caminos del conocimiento, la creación y el exilio (Eutelequia, 2014). I am interested in the representations, in her work, of the transformations of the world and of her own through magical and everyday actions and have published extensively on her thought and creation.

I have also researched other artists who worked in the artistic context of the avant-garde and historical movements of the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War, as well as in exile in Mexico, and who link their work to their spiritual and transformational interests, among them Maruja Mallo, Delhy Tejero and Kati Horna. I have participated in numerous congresses and colloquiums on these subjects and have given lectures in Spain, Mexico, France, Ireland and Italy.

Maia Creus

Doctora en Historia del arte, profesora e investigadora. Crítica de arte y curadora de exposiciones. Ha trabajado sobre la obra escrita y artística de Fina Miralles (artista que presentó recientemente el MACBA, 2021). Editora de ‘Paraules Fèrtils’, estudio de gran profundidad sobre los cuadernos y dietarios de vida de Fina Miralles. La experiencia visionaria de la creatividad de mujeres singulares, la presencia de lo sagrado y la perspectiva feminista definen sus territorios de investigación y relatos. Recibió el premio ACCA en 2019.

Diana Padrón Alonso

Diana Padrón is a professor, a researcher, and an independent curator. B.A. in Art History at University of La Laguna, M.A. Advanced Studies of Art History at University of Barcelona and Ph.D. in Society and Culture: History, Anthropology, Arts, Heritage and Cultural Management at the same university. Since 2012, she has been collaborating with the Art Globalization Interculturality research group (UB). She has been coordinator of On Mediation. Platform on Research and Curatorship and co-editor of REG|AC journal (Journal of Global Studies and Contemporary Art) at University of Barcelona. She is also associated with the R&D Art and Technosphere research group at Complutense University of Madrid. Her line of work focuses on the analysis of urban concerns from radical geography, cultural criticism, and art theory approaches. She collaborates with various publications on contemporary art, political thought, and social sciences.

Julia Ramirez-Blanco

Teacher and researcher at the University of Barcelona. She is an art historian and critic, she investigates the relationship between art and utopia, to which she dedicated her European doctoral thesis. Her recent work has focused on the intersection between art, social imagination, and activism.

On the aesthetics of activism, she is the author of the book Artistic Utopias of Revolt: Claremont Road, Reclaim the Streets, The City of Sol (New York and London: Palgrave, 2018). About the history of artist groups, she is the author of Friends, costumes and communes: the brotherhoods of artists of the 19th century (Cátedra) where she also addresses the connection of some of these groups with esotericism and questions of gender.

She has published in collectives and magazines such as Third Text, Arquitectura Viva, Quintana, Lars, Boletín de Arte, El Mundo, Abc Cultural and The Nation Journal. She regularly collaborates with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA). She has lectured at Princeton University, Columbia University, the Reina Sofía National Art Museum, the Del Prado Museum, the Warburg Haus, or the Württemgbergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgatt. As a professor, she has been a guest at New York University or the American University in Paris. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and at the prestigious Residencia de Estudiantes (CSIC, Madrid). Since 2018 she has belonged to the Committee of the Society for Utopian Studies, an international network dedicated to utopian studies.

Jo Milne

Is a visual artist who works between Edinburgh, London and Barcelona. Awarded a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Barcelona in 2016, her research focusses on the methodologies used by scientists, artists and visionaries to visualize the invisible.

This research has led to collaborations with programmers and scientists at CitiLab (Cornella), the VHIR, Barcelona and the Chemistry Department of the University of Barcelona and more recently at the Museu Moli de Paper in Capellades. Her consideration of the visualisation of the invisible has led her to form part of the research groups IMARTE (UB), ARE (Art, Resilience and Economy (Independent) and the Visionary Women Research Group led by Dr Pilar Bonet.

She teaches visual creation at EINA, Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art in Barcelona and has lectured at the University of Barcelona, Winchester School of Art, Duncan of Jordanstone, Europaïsche Kunstakademie Trier and MassArt (Boston). Her work has received awards from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (Canada), the RSA, Arena Foundation, AENA and has undertaken residencies at the Museu d’art de Sabadell and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Mapi Rivera

PhD in Fine Arts with the thesis “The Numinous Sense of Light. Approaches between Creation and Visionary Experience”, adapted and published by Herder Editorial. She completed the doctorate curse “Art and Thought” and has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. ​​She obtained an Erasmus Grant in Saint Martins University of London.

From the beginning of her career, the mystical texts, shamanic and transpersonal references, have been her main source of inspiration. She uses drawing and poetic writing to sketch and document dreamlike and visionary inner states that she translates and elaborates through video and photography, afterwards. The recent incorporation of digital resources allows her to show and reveal what seems invisible to ordinary vision, but, above all, the photographic technique is at the service of what motivates her to create; an intimate, exalted and joyous perception of reality.

Andrea Graus Ferrer

Andrea Graus is a Ramón y Cajal senior researcher at the Milà i Fontanals Institution (CSIC) in Barcelona. Previously, she was a Beatriu de Pinós fellow in the same institution, a Marie Curie fellow at the Centre Alexandre Koyré (CNRS) in Paris, and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. She has published on the history of spiritism, hypnosis and mysticism in modern Spain and France. She is the author of Ciencia y espiritismo en España, 1880-1930 (Comares, 2019). Her most recent investigations deal with the history of child prodigies and the scientific and cultural fascination with talented children in Europe (1800-1950).

Mery Cuesta

Crítica de arte, comisaria de exposiciones y dibujante. Obtuvo el Premio Espais de la Crítica de Arte gracias al cual publicó su primer ensayo sobre el cine experimental español en la España de los 70. Es una firma habitual desde 2002 en el Cultura/s de La Vanguardia. Como comisaria ha realizado una veintena de exposiciones en torno a la cultura popular, el outsider art, y los mecanismos de funcionamiento del arte contemporáneo, entre ellas Quinquis de los 80: Cine, prensa y calle (CCCB, La Casa Encendida, Alhóndiga Bilbao), La mano izquierda de Cervantes (Instituto Cervantes de Estambul), Humor Absurdo (Artium) o Bálsamo y fuga: la creación artística en prisión (Caixaforum Barcelona), comisaria del Pabellón Catalán en Bienal de Venecia 2017. En el ámbito del cómic, ha publicado tres álbumes y dibuja crítica cultural en cómic para diversos medios. Su último ensayo-cómic es La Rue del Percebe de la cultura (Editorial Consonni). Actualmente gestiona el proyecto ‘Sintonia Radiante’ en Matadero.

Dolors Marín Silvestre

Dolors Marín Silvestre es doctora en Historia Contemporánea por la Universitat de Barcelona con una tesis sobre el imaginario anarquista en los primeros 30 años del siglo XX en España. Ha trabajado como a documentalista y curadora de exposiciones sobre patrimonio contemporáneo, etnografía y obrerismo. También ha trabajado como documentalista y asesora de varios documentales de temática histórica. Se dedica a la docencia y es autora de varios libros sobre anarquismo, feminismo y prácticas religiosas heréticas en contextos industrializados en Catalunya y Europa. De su obra escrita puede destacarse Clandestinos: El maquis contra el franquismo, Ministros anarquistas, y La Semana Trágica.

Vivienne Roberts

Curator and archivist at the College of Psychic Studies (Est. 1884) in London, where she cares for their large collection of art, photographs and artefacts dating from the beginning of modern spiritualism to the present day. This wealth of material and the College’s specialist library has afforded wonderful opportunities to research mediumistic and visionary art.

It has led to the recent College exhibitions: Encounters with the Spirit World 2016 and Visions of Wonder: Art & Spirit 2019, with a new exhibition: Strange Things Among Us, planned for 2021. Other areas of research are the history of British mediumistic art, with particular focus on Georgiana Houghton and Madge Gill, as well as rediscovering and identifying artists from around the world that have fallen into obscurity, such as Alice Pery, Ethel Annie Weir and Alice Essington Nelson. Publications include: Alice Pery: Royal Blood and Spirit Voices (Raw Vision Magazine), Georgiana Houghton: Pioneering Spirit (Psychic News), The Art and Spirit of Madge Gill (Light Magazine Est. 1881) and Madge & the Spiritualists in the exhibition catalogue for the retrospective exhibition Madge Gill: Medium & Visionary, curated by Roger Cardinal, Henry Boxer and Vivienne Roberts. The latest contribution is for the upcoming exhibition catalogue of Elles font l’abstraction in 2021 at the Pompidou, Paris and Guggenheim, Bilbao.

Pepa Balsach

M. J. Balsach es profesora del Departamento de Historia del Arte de la Universitat de Girona. Es miembro del comité ejecutivo de la cátedra Miró del Grupo Internacional de Investigación Joan Miró. La Cátedra Miró es una iniciativa conjunta de la Fundación Joan Miró y de la Universidad Abierta de Cataluña (UOC) el objetivo es profundizar en el estudio y la difusión de Joan Miró. La cátedra se enmarca dos actividades centrales: grupo Internacional de Investigación Joan Miró y curso de posgrado de Estudios mironianos Fundación Joan Miró – UOC. Es la autora de “Joan Miró: cosmogonías de un mundo originario 1918-1939” (2007).

Ester G. Mecías

Visual Artist and Independent Researcher of Heterodox Spiritualities. Graduate from the University of Fine Arts of Barcelona, Bilateral Scholarship at MassArt, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, USA, among other Scholarships, Grants and Residencies. She has studied International Studies in Anthroposophy, Goetheanum, Switzerland 2019-20.  She is a member and secretary of V-W -Visionary Women Research Group-, where she researches the work of Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz. Co-founder of the undisciplinary art collective Les Salonnières, Barcelona 2006-2018. Currently her work explores sound or vibration as the genesis of creation, she creates transdisciplinary projects with diverse collectives using different formats such as painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, dance, photography, sound, among others. She has created artistic projects in Europe, Japan, USA, Colombia, Ecuador and Switzerland. She has received support from MACBA, Akademie der Künste of Berlin, Fundació Tàpies, Ajuntament de Mataró, AcVIC, Arts Santa Mònica, MUSAC, Hangar, ICUB, Museo de la Tertulia, among others.

Raisa Maudit

Visual artist, independent curator and cultural producer. Her work is defined as representations of desires, constructions, contradictions and expectations built with special interest in the limits of dissent. Often in the form of a question, a pointing finger or a small rebellion. It involves throwing questions into the air that asks the viewer to respond, forcing them to position themselves inevitably. The experience as a subversive act. She uses to work in a multidisciplinary way- video, photography, sound, action, installation, performance or curatoring – with special interest in experimentation and in the (non) limits of languages ​​and disciplines. Postanarchism, transfeminism, popular culture, identity, the body as a tool or the occult are some of her recurring themes.

Judit Vidiella

Judit (without H for Holofernes) Vidiella Pagès is a researcher and artist. Graduated and PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona (UB). She has taught at several universities: Faculty of Fine Arts UB, Miguel Hernández University, University of Évora (Portugal), University of the Republic of Uruguay. Since 2015 she regularly teaches in the Degree in Performing Arts and in the Degree in Audiovisual Communication and Multimedia at ERAM (University of Girona). Related research: IP at Pleasurescapes. Port Cities’ Transnational Forces of Integration (PCI2019-103743) (2019-2022), where she investigated the spiritist infrastructures of communication at port cities and the bodies out of control in hypnosis and spirititist theatre shows. Also, Visiones del cuerpo enfermo en el cine y la fotografía: patologías físicas y psíquicas (PID 2021-125555NB-100) (2022-2025). Interested in Performance Studies, Cultural Pedagogies, Arts Based (Educational) Research, Body Theories and Feminist Practices.

 Mariona Vilaseca

Su conexión con lo espiritual está presente desde los inicios de su aproximación a las artes, primero a través de la performance, fotografías que documentaban atmósferas o «colores infinito decimales». Vilaseca no trata de representar el mundo externo, sino lo que capta a nivel sutil, en forma de líneas infinitas, trazadas de una sola respiración y con el pulso de la mano alzada.

Su fase investigadora inició con una tesina sobre el elemento agua, la metáfora entre la manifestación de la vida y la muerte. Después del DEA inscribió su tesis titulada “Experiencia pictórica y contemplación”, en que su propia obra era el testimonio de cómo su proceso creativo era desarrollado paralelamente de su experiencia contemplativa, del impacto del silencio y transferencia de sus experiencias en las obras artísticas… Pero no tuvo su desarrollo final, al fallecer su tutor de tesis en medio del proceso. La tesis que defendió finalmente, el 2016 se tituló “Experiencia estética y contemplación” con el testimonio de 5 instalaciones del artista alemán Wolfgang Laib, tutorizada por el Dr. Amador Vega Esquerre.

Irene López Arnaiz

Irene López Arnaiz is a postdoctoral research fellow Juan de la Cierva at the Art History and Heritage Department of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). She received a Ph.D. in Art History from Complutense University of Madrid (2018, Outstanding Ph.D. Award). She specializes in the relationship between dance and visual arts, focusing on the presence of South and Southeast Asian dances in Western modernism. She also examines the construction process of the «Orientalist» imaginary in this same context. In this field, she studies the relations between art, dance and esotericism, focusing on the reception of Asian religions in the European art. Her research pays special attention to the oeuvre of women in the field of dance and the visual arts of this period.

Assumpta Bassas Vila

Cuentan que nació con los ojos abiertos en la clínica Bellesguard (bella mirada). Quizás este azar la llevó a maravillarse siempre con lo que nos hace vibrar a instantes y al unísono con el qi de la vida. Aprendió de las aventuras y desventuras de la maternidad antes de escribir su tesis doctoral (2016) preguntándose, en ambos casos, sobre la libertad de las mujeres. Desde 1995 es profesora del Departamento de Historia del arte de la UB y nutre su investigación y docencia en círculos independientes de mujeres artistas e investigadoras como “Las beguinas”, “De fondus”, “Dones que cremen romaní”, “Desbordar la Universitat” y “V¬W Visionary Women Group Research”. Cuando tiene algo relevante que contar lo hace a través de la organización de exposiciones, talleres y textos. Sus recientes propuestas curatoriales han sido: En el nombre de la madre, en el nombre de la tierra, en AcVic, 2020 e Irreductibles. Performances feministas, CCCB, 2019. Practica y es monitora de qi gong (IQB, 2021).

Sara Petrucci

Sara Petrucci has been a Teaching Assistant in contemporary art history at the University of Geneva (2019-2021) and Neuchâtel (2015-2021). Her doctoral thesis investigates the gothic imagination of the weightless body through the 20th Century. She was Research Associate at the Musées d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, for the exhibition Nightfall. Gothic Imagination since Frankenstein (2016-2017). In 2020, she co-curated, with Régine Bonnefoit, the exhibition and catalogue Number, Rhythm, Transformation. Contemporary dialogues with Emma Kunz (2020) at the Kunsthalle Appenzell. Since her studies at the universities of Neuchâtel and Florence, she has combined academic activity with diverse working experiences in art institutions (Centre PasquArt; CAN, with Marie DuPasquier), art foundations (Fondation Gandur pour l’Art) and an art gallery (Bailly Gallery). From 2021, she is part of the team Documents d’artistes Genève, a digital editing platform for contemporary artists. She writes on Emma Kunz, Kiki Kogelnik, VR and the gothic at large.

Alexa Jade Frankelis

Alexa Jade Frankelis is a researcher and visual artist based in New York City. She has recently received her BA in Art History and Criticism (Hons.) from Stony Brook University, and previously attended the BFA Photography and Video program at the School of Visual Arts. By day, Alexa works in the archive of one of the largest private photographic archives in North America. As a researcher, she has presented and published her papers and images about witchcraft, spirit photography, and other occult subjects on LIFE.com, The Speculative Arts Research Journal, The Association for Art History’s Annual Conference. Her main focuses are mysticism and the occult within nineteenth to mid-twentieth century visual culture and theory. You can find more of her explorations into these subjects on her Instagram, @TheMourningMoon, and other projects here: https://bio.site/themourningmoon.

Graciela García

Investigadora y comisaria especializada en Art Brut/Arte Outsider. Trabaja como representante para la Galerie Christian Berst y la Fundación Art Brut Project realizando labores de investigación, comisariado y coordinación de publicaciones. Desde que se doctoró en 2010 con la tesis “Procesos Creativos en Artistas Outsider” (UCM) ha publicado el libro “Art Brut. La pulsión creativa al desnudo” (2015, reeditado en 2018) así como artículos en diversos medios especializados como Raw Vision, Osservatorio Outsider Art, Arteterapia – Papeles de arteterapia y educación artística para la inclusión social, Sans Soleil- Estudios de la imagen o Seminter. Ha impartido conferencias en foros como la UCM, la UAM, la Universidad Carlos III, el IVAM, las Jornadas de Salud Mental y Cultura de Sant Boi o Art Madrid (Fundación FIART). Ha escrito e interpretado sobre las obras de la catalana Neus Sala y la croata Dunya Hirschter, ejemplo de procesos creativos fuera de norma y en contextos vitales difíciles. En la actualidad compagina sus investigaciones en torno al art brut con su trabajo creativo. Es artista y directora de Arte en el estudio de diseño “Se ha ido ya mamá”, del que es socia fundadora.

Marta Miró Garcia

Passionate about creation from alternative perspectives, for expressions from the soul, her career begins in rock art and reaches art brut: both exude human emotion. She worked for more than 15 years in the world of museums, understanding them as a service to the community. She therefore immersed herself in the field of accessibility and opened the doors of museums to mental health, an innovative project that has inspired many others. She co-founded in 2009 the Susoespai Association. Creation and Mental Health, a permanent space for artistic creation for people with severe mental disorders. From 2015-2020 she created and promoted a creative writing workshop also in mental health. In November 2017, she and Dr. Graciela García, the best partner and teacher on this trip, curated the exhibition «Neus Sala. The intimate museum». Both the two houses intervened by this artist and the exhibition can be visited virtually on the web: espaineussala.com. Currently she puts order in the personal documentation of Rafael Bolet Vía. Inspired in his youth by divine illumination, he spread vegetarianism, theosophy and love for humanity, and created in his home a temple of synthesis for Peace, spreading with kindness and generosity the spiritual ideals of the Great Universal Brotherhood.

Aitor Saraiba

Artista multidisciplinar cuyo eje central ha sido el dibujo y el traslado de este a diferentes soportes, obra textil, pintura, video o fotografía. La conjunción entre performance y dibujo, le permite desarrollar la acción de calle que ha denominado Dibujos Curativos, en la que establece una relación directa con el público cuando cada persona le cuenta sus inquietudes, sueños y angustias que él interpreta y exorciza en forma de dibujo.

Además, el dibujo le lleva a publicar varios libros en los que el texto autobiográfico es el eje central , publicando El hijo del Legionario (2011), Pajarillo (2012), Nada más importa (2013), a estos títulos les seguirán otros en los que el dibujo comienza a desaparecer y el poder de la literatura se apodera de las obras Por el Olvido (2018) o Me encanta cuando tus garras acarician mi alma (2019). Actualmente trabaja preparado su nuevo libro que escribe e ilustra y que verá la luz en 2022 de la mano de Planeta. 

Begoña Méndez

Begoña Méndez (Palma, 1976) es licenciada en Lingüística General y en Filología Hispánica por la Universidad de Barcelona. También en la UB, se remasterizó en Literatura en la Era Digital y más tarde fue Premio Extraordinario en el máster de Humanidades de la UOC, con un trabajo centrado en Diario de juventud de la escritora uruguaya Idea Vilariño. Es profesora de lengua y literatura en una escuela de adultos y colaboradora en las revistas culturales Pliego Suelto, El Cultural y Mercurio. Ha publicado Una flor sin pupila y la mujer de nieve (Sloper, 2019), artefacto literario hecho de versos, escritura automática y collages.