International Project Coordinator
Seila Fernández Arconada is an experienced International Project Coordinator with a proven track record of successfully leading collaborative projects across diverse cultural and geographical contexts. Her expertise in in diverse grounds (such academic spaces, artistic projects, community engagement or artistic-non-formal pedagogy, among others), has enabled her to contribute significantly to projects addressing complex social and environmental challenges.
Recent International Artistic Coordination:
"Post Truth? Countering Disinformation Narratives" (2023): A collaborative project that engaged with the challenges of the post-truth era, focusing on the growing problem of disinformation and fake news. The project involved a series of transdisciplinary collaborative residencies, workshops, and public events in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and France, bringing together artists, researchers, activists, and community members.
Recent International Artistic Coordination:
"Post Truth? Countering Disinformation Narratives" (2023): A collaborative project that engaged with the challenges of the post-truth era, focusing on the growing problem of disinformation and fake news. The project involved a series of transdisciplinary collaborative residencies, workshops, and public events in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and France, bringing together artists, researchers, activists, and community members.
During this project I coordinated the international project as Art Director of Lernlabor. I designed the program with the situated methodologies in each country, doing an in depth research on the topic for the training spaces as well as coordinating the whole program with the partner organisations in each country.
This project included a number of skills I have acquired in my artistic experience, however, it has challenged them, refining the approach and opportunities for longer term collaborations. While leading and managing the different teams and participant artists, I have curated exhibitions in each project location, guide artists in their collaborative creative process as well as providing communication on the project such the design of the website, social media, final publication, etc. This project has proven my proven my ability to manage complex projects and meet deadlines, conducting meaningful dialogue, high level outcomes and long lasting networks.
#EstudioFlotante (#floatingstudio, when a river sounds like the river Amazon) is an artistic project inspired by the relationship between human beings and water, particularly in the Amazon River, the planet's most significant freshwater reserve. Led by artist and researcher Seila Fernández Arconada, this project employs movement as a creative method, tracing a journey along the Amazon River from its source in Peru to its mouth in Brazil.
This artistic practice is rooted in a process-based approach to socio-environmental research, emphasising exchange, collaboration, and participation to inspire reflections and artistic forms in motion. The project was created to generate situated dialogue with the territory, exploring concepts such as river, water, suspended time, movement, in-between spaces, notions of place and identity, and dialogues of knowledge, species, and places.
The project involves several interconnected phases, including multidisciplinary research and creation about the Amazon River, meetings and stays with individuals and groups from scientific research centers, universities, artistic centers, and various communities, and a creative process directly linked to the Amazon River itself. Traveling on cargo and passenger ships along the river, the project will transform these boats into floating studios, spaces for exchange and creation that aim to reflect on the river from its own perspective.
This "watery journey" was originally scheduled to take place from January to September 2020, beginning in Chivay, Peru, with a visit to Nevado Mismi, the farthest source of the Amazon River. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project was paused in April 2020. However, the project was reshaped, continuing the conceptual premises and learnings from the encounters experienced during the initial stages of the journey to deliver the final stage presented at the Centro Botín in late 2022.
In this three years's project I demonstrate my ability to coordinate international projects, designing and implementing methodologies that engage participants and create collaboration. I facilitated transdisciplinary spaces bringing together individuals from diverse fields and different indigenous communities to exchange and share while building relationships with the "river". Due to covid the need to adapt to changing circumstances was a key challenge during this process. The in-depth research on complex topics has been presented exhibited in a number of publications and high level artistic results.