The Mediterranean as a journey, and the journey as a creative wander and a frontier experience, at the same time. These featured texts gather some of the many conceptions of mobility to which the Mediterranean is testimony and impulse. The connection between parallel shores evoked by Santiago Alba Rico, the experience of the frontier through Najat El Hachmi’s eyes, the essay on the burdens to cultural mobility of Lara Bourdin, the creative wander of Pau Catà’s rihla and the meditations inspired by memories of a Mediterranean circumvallation by Uri Costak.
Selected texts
Santiago Alba Rico
Santiago Alba Rico is a writer and essayist. He studied Philosophy at the Complutense University in Madrid. During the eighties, he was the scriptwriter of the legendary television show La bola de cristal. He has authored more than twenty books on politics, philosophy and literature, as well as three children's stories and one theatre production. His essay Las reglas del caos was a finalist for the 1995 Anagrama Prize. Since 1998, he has been focused on the Arab world, having translated into Spanish the Egyptian poet Naguib Surur and the Iraqi novelist Mohammed Jydair. He has also taught literature classes at the Cervantes Institute for several years. His latest books are Ser o no ser (un cuerpo) (Seix Barral, 2017), Todo el pasado por delante (Los libros de la catarata, 2017) and Nadie está seguro con un libro en las manos (Catarata, 2018). He regularly contributes to different media such as Público, Cuarto Poder, CTXT, Diari ARA or El País, among others. In 2019, within the project Última hora, he collected his radio collaborations at the program Carne Cruda.
Najat El Hachmi
Najat El Hachmi Buhhu is a Catalan writer born in Nador, Morocco. She holds a Degree in Arabic Philology from the University of Barcelona (UB) and she contributes to several media and various radio stations. The strangeness of the feeling of belonging to two different countries, in addition to her desire to bring together both worlds, led her to write her first book, Jo també sóc catalana (Columna, 2004). Her works of fiction include her first novel, L’últim patriarca (Planeta, 2008), which received the 2008 Ramon Llull Prize, the Prix Ulysse and was a finalist for the Prix Méditerranée étranger. She also authored La cazadora de cuerpos (Columna – Planeta, 2011); La filla estrangera (Edicions 62 – Destino, 2015), awarded with the BBVA Sant Joan Novel Award and the City of Barcelona Award, and the successful Mare de llet i mel (Edicions 62 – Destino, 2018). Her most recent work is an essay on feminism and Islam, Sempre han parlat per nosaltres (Edicions 62 - Destino, 2019), which has been well received by critics and audiences alike.
Lara Bourdin
Lara Bourdin is an independent art writer, researcher and translator. She holds a Master’s degree in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Sorbonne-Université and a Master's degree in Art History from the Université de Montréal. Her research interests are focused on contemporary art practices in Africa and Brazil, with a special interest on topics related to (forced) migration and mobility. She currently works as Research and Publications Manager for Art Moves Africa and she is an independent member of international cultural mobility network On the Move. She is an alumnus of the 2018 Arts-Rights-Justice Academy, hosted by the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim, Germany. In addition to her work in the cultural field, she has worked with organizations supporting refugees and new immigrants in Mozambique and Canada since 2010. Her new research projects centre on the concept of hospitality in contemporary art, film and literature.
Pau Catà
Pau Catà is the founder-director of CeRCCa and Co-coordinator of NACMM - North Africa Cultural Mobility Map and Platform HARAKAT. He is currently finishing his practice-led Ph.D. in Art at Edinburgh University, a project which is available online. His work, focusing on historiography, artistic research, epistemology, and the journey within the Euro-Med context, has been published in several journals such as Artnodes, reVisiones, Transartist-On AIR, Interartive, and TCE. He has co-curated several exhibitions such as The Art of Getting Lost in Gudran-El Behna (Alexandria), In between wells _ reloaded, Le18 (Marrakech), Estat Previ in Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani from Palma de Mallorca, Resistances by the Sea at the Museu d’Art Modern de Tarragona, Transformer at Blitz as part of V18 (Matla) and also Focus Magreb and Focus Mediterranea at SWAB Barcelona International Art Fair 2016 and 2017.
Uri Costak
Uri Costak has been creating content for 30 years. He has been radio scriptwriter for Cadena Ser's La Ventana, reporter at La Vanguardia, creative director for different advertising agencies and professor in the Master's degree in Creative Brand Management (UPF-BSM), among many other occupations. In 2019 he published his first novel L'estilita (Amsterdam), El estilita (Ed. Destino), Stillit (Geopoetika). He has also started a collaboration with the Civit Art Collection, where he has created three works (graphics, sculpture and installation) that explore the contradictions of the contemporary world. In 2005, which was the European Year of the Mediterranean and the tenth anniversary of the start of the Barcelona Process, he and his brother Jan Martin went on a tour around the Mediterranean, travelling along its entire coast from Barcelona to Barcelona.
