Three candidates from Spain have been selected to take part in the 2023/2024 Ulysses' Shelter 3 residency programme. Congratulations!

Laura Torres Bauzà (Mallorca, 1990) has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and two master's degrees; one in Contemporary Artistic Production and Research from the UB and a second one in Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Thought from the Pompeu Fabra University, where she is carrying out a PhD at the humanities department. In recent years she has been developing her artistic practice, combining both writing and visual production. She uses a multidisciplinary approach to explore the cognitive frameworks through which we as a society construct meaning and interpret reality. Her work focuses on how our symbolic and narrative legacies converge, seeking to analyze and present them in unconventional ways mixing a wide range of media (photography, video, installation, performance) with writing. Among her exhibitions, some highlights include: Sobre la revolució [On Revolution] (La Capella, Barcelona Production, 2019), Un amor Salvaje que arruina nuestra paz [A Wild Love that Ruins Our Peace] (La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2019), En memòria de la forma [In Memory of the Form] (Casal Solleric, 2018), Techno Blood (Sala d'art jove de Barcelona, ​​2017) or Dolor de ser i no ser tu: desig [Pain of Being and Not Being You: Desire] (Felicia Fuster Foundation, Barcelona, ​​2016). In 2016 she won the Amadeu Oller Prize for unpublished authors with the poem collection L’Inhabitable [The Uninhabitable] (Galerada) and, in 2020, the Salvador Iborra Poetry Prize with Els temps últims [The Last Times] (Viena Edicions, 2021). She is now developing her first narrative project, after receiving a Crea grant from the City Hall of Barcelona.

photo by Coco Dávez

Jacobo Bergareche (London, 1976) dropped out of the Fine Arts Faculty at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and went on to study Literature and Writing at Emerson College in Boston. He started as a producer and writer of fiction shows on most of the major Spanish TV networks. In 2012 he relocated to Austin, Texas, where he worked for a tech company and was able to conduct research into the private correspondence of various writers at the Harry Ransom Center; his novel, Perfect Days (Los días perfectos, Libros del Asteroide, 2021) is one of the fruits of that research, and was awarded a special mention from the European Union Prize for Literature, as well as being included as one of the books of the year by most newspapers in Spain. Perfect Days is being translated into ten different languages. Bergareche is also author of the poetry collection Playas (2004), the play Coma (2015), the series of children’s books Aventuras en Bodytown (2017), and the autobiographical novel about his brother’s murder Estaciones de regreso (2019). He also contributes articles regularly to El País Semanal, Elle magazine and The Objective, and has written and produced audio-documentaries for Sonora. His next novel, Las despedidas, will be relased in October 2023 by Libros del Asteroide. 

Aitana Ahrens was part of the poetry collective Vitalismo. With this collective she gave talks in schools and local venues throughout Spain. As a result of this experience she saw the need to create with other colleagues a collective of non-binary people and women with whom she organized readings every Thursday during 2018. Her interest has always been in dealing with the text on screen which led to her working as programmer of Cinezeta at the Cineteca de Matadero in the course 2021 - 2022 promoting films that open this dialogue. She has written the scripts for the short films Cleo will come over tonight (co-written with MiguelGuindos, 2022), and Plastic Touch (2022) (co-written with Marcos Solanillaand Gema del Castillo). Her poetry has been published in Luna Llena, Mujeres brujas (Mariposa ediciones).