Christian Alonso, new director of the La Panera Art Center

The cultural researcher, curator and teacher Christian Alonso (Lleida, 1987) has won the competition for the direction of the La Panera Art Center in Lleida. Alonso is an International Doctor, Master and Bachelor of Art History from the University of Barcelona, and has extensive experience in the field of research, teaching, management, coordination, production and communication of educational programs, curatorial projects, of mediation and artistic production of national and international scope.

Alonso has also worked as a professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Lleida, at the ESDi School of Design – Ramon Llull University, and at the University of Barcelona. He has been project coordinator for the research group Art Globalization, Interculturality (University of Barcelona), and coordinator and founding member of the curatorial study and internship program On Mediation. His work analyzes the relationship between art and ecology in the current context of climate and social crises, characterized by existential precariousness and the rise of authoritarian, racist, xenophobic and sexist dynamics. Her research and curatorial practice explores the ability of art to produce affective, creative, and transformative ways of life. He has worked on this topic as a curator, as an author and publisher of books and magazines, as a coordinator of conferences, symposia, seminars and workshops on art and critical thinking, and as a director of applied artistic research projects.

His project for the La Panera Art Center will be articulated in four objectives: to strengthen its role as a platform for contemporary creation in the field of visual arts, digital arts, musical arts, sound arts, and body arts; consolidate the institution as a center for research, experimentation, thought and artistic, curatorial, and mediation training; to turn the commitment with the territory into a transversal axis in the programming of La Panera; and to maintain, reinforce, diversify and complement the existing areas of Education, Public Programs and Documentation.

These objectives are part of a more general program that aims to implement the methodology of environmental and social sustainability in institutional practice, and produce curatorial projects that are crossed by the gender, feminist, ecological and postcolonial perspective; to contribute to an affective, constructive and multilateral relationship with the neighbors of the neighborhood, the city and the territory that contribute to the common well-being.