Research on (Migrant) Belonging in Spanish cities: Anthology of Culturally Hybrid Artists in Spain

For nearly five centuries, Spain was a country of net emigration, a history that shifted dramatically in the late twentieth century. Since the 1980s, immigration has been rapidly transforming Spain’s cities and cultural life, as the foreign-born population grew from approximately 1-2 percent in the 1980s to nearly 18 percent in 2025, giving rise to new forms of artistic expression. My research project, Post-Migration Spain: Artists, Cities, and New Cultural Geographies, focuses on culturally hybrid artists - creators born to immigrant parents or raised in Spain from a young age - whose work navigates both “Spanish” and “migrant” experiences. Although fully Spanish, these artists are often labeled by the media and public institutions as “new Spaniards,” a term that overlooks their long-standing presence in the country. With family origins spanning Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other European countries, their work reflects the global connections shaping contemporary Spanish urban culture. Active across literature, visual arts, film, music, and performance, they are increasingly visible in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Coruña, Bilbao, and Valencia, yet remain underrepresented in cultural institutions and academic narratives.

Supported by the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, summer 2025 fieldwork in Spain started to document this emerging cultural landscape through interviews, archival research, and close engagement with local artistic networks. Because the study of culturally hybrid artists remains largely undocumented, fieldwork was essential to capture voices, collaborations, and practices that are not yet systematically recorded. Post-Migration Spain aims to create a coherent narrative of these artists living and working in Spanish cities, highlighting their contributions to the country’s cultural production while situating their work within broader European and transatlantic contexts.

The HMUI grant supported the initiation of four interrelated outcomes that will emerge from this research: an anthology of culturally hybrid Spanish artists; a comparative transatlantic book of essays on second-generation women artists; a digital Web Art-Lab mapping the work of migrant and culturally hybrid artists in Spain; and the design of an undergraduate/graduate course titled Cultural Hybrid Identities in European Cities. All publications will be open access and aimed at a broad audience, including students, scholars, educators, and artists. The research has already enriched teaching, exemplified by the invitation of graphic artist Quan Zhou Wu to speak at Harvard to students in fall 2025, fostering connections between urban research, artistic practice, and public engagement.

Grant Recipient: Raquel Vega-Durán