Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga

Directing, coordinating and supervising the Studies, Para-academia, Programme of Independent Studies, Film and New Media, Tentacular Museum and Research areas, and the “Museo Reina Sofía Campus” and institutes, as well as working on the conception, development and connectivity of discursive lines and lines of thought in the Museo, inside the theoretical framework of its public programme and the institutional exchange of knowledge, under the terms established in the Resolution of 28 May 2024 (Provision 11110 of the Official State Gazette, 1 June 2024).

She holds a BA in Humanities obtained from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona in 2008 and an MA in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College (University of London) in 2009, with her dissertation, written under the guidance of Irit Rogoff, receiving an honourable mention.

In July 2024 Julia was named the Museo Reina Sofía’s director of Studies, a role she currently holds. From 2023 to 2024, she directed the Parisian office of KADIST, and from 2021 to 2023 she was part of the executive committee of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst (Utrecht), where she was also a curator on its post-academic programme. Furthermore, she previously participated in the foundational structure of Concomitentes and mediated in the intervention of artist Iván Argote at the Complutense University of Madrid. She was also a curator in the Opening section of ARCOMadrid. Prior to this, she worked as an advisor in visual arts on the PICE programme of A/CE-Acción Cultural Española (2019–2020), co-directed the escuelita of the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M) [2016–2019], and was a curator on the Programme of Thought for Teatros del Canal (2018–2020), as well as coordinating Feria LOOP (2012–2013) and curating the Barcelona Pavilion at the Ninth Shanghai Biennale with a project by Antoni Miralda (2012) and the Screen Festival (2011). She was also an exhibition and event organiser at Gasworks, London (2009–2010).

In the para-academic sphere, Julia has lectured on degree and postgraduate programmes at institutions such as Leiden University, EINA Barcelona, the Dutch Art Institute, the SUR School at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, and the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm, and has taught courses and given lectures at, among others, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, De Appel Amsterdam, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the University of the Basque Country-EHU, Goldsmiths College (University of London), the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA) and the École Normale Supérieure-PLS Paris. Her work, which has been presented internationally in multiple formats, is situated at the crossroads between questions put forward by cultural studies and critical theory in light of artistic, visual and performative practice and educational and political intervention.

Her projects are articulated around long-term curatorial investigations such as Canibalia, Be careful with each other, so we can be dangerous together, Coreografías Sociales, Estudios de la Noche and The Hauntologists. Moreover, she regularly writes about critical theory, cultural studies and artistic and education practices, and has participated as an advisor on different cultural and pedagogical programmes and structures.

Gross remuneration for 2024: €80,040.24