We interview researcher and professor Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa. He completed a European doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Hamburg and the Universitat de Barcelona. After stays in Dresden and Montevideo, he held teaching positions at the universities of Edinburgh and East London, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at Yale University and a Ramón y Cajal fellowship at the Universitat de Barcelona. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Psychological Treatment and also collaborates with the Spanish Association of Mental Health Professionals, the European Network for (ex)-Users, and the Survivors of Psychiatry and the Global Anti-Stigma Alliance. His research is focused on the analysis of strategies for the awareness of mental health service users and professionals, with the aim to improve communication between them.

This month, we interview journalist and world traveler Alicia Escribano. Immersed in the world of radio and television since she was 17, she has since developed an extensive career in various media outlets. She is known for hosting television and radio cultural programs, such as her long-running interview program Barcelonautes on 25TV, reporting on everything from political debates to cultural showcases and more. And Alicia is known not only for her reporting on the local scene, but also for bringing stories from around the world to Barcelona through Barcelonautes. As the tagline goes on her travel blog: You think you're going to make a journey. But the journey makes you. She’s an example of how where we go in life shapes who we are, and how opening yourself up to new experiences makes life that much richer.

This month we speak with bluesman, painter and sculptor Richard White. Born in Philadelphia, Richard has performed concerts all over the U.S. and Europe before finally making Tarragona his home. He has become a fixture in the Catalan blues scene, from organizing independent blues festivals to recording and releasing his own work. He is also a painter and sculptor with international exhibitions to his credit, and his work—both visual and musical—is known for combining satire, social commentary and a deep love of storytelling.

In this episode of the Metropolitan Culture Corner we go behind the scenes with Lulú Txispún: burlesque dancer, teacher and festival organizer extraordinaire. She has traveled the world performing, and even serving as a judge at international burlesque events. She has also taught burlesque since 2013, and is the co-founder of the Barcelona Burlesque Meeting and Festival. Joining her in this interview is Yiste, one of her artistic collaborators in the festival, an acclaimed photographer, and graphic and performing artist originally from Caracas, Venezuela, who now makes his home in Barcelona. He is known for producing transgressive, often political neoburlesque, and is currently the producer of monthly burlesque show Foxy Cabaret.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we interview Chris Reilly, former chair of the Barcelona chapter of Democrats Abroad. If you’ve seen previous installments of this monthly interview series, then you know that we usually go behind the scenes with someone from the world of the arts. However, culture is multifaceted, and we wanted to speak with someone who is deeply involved in a different facet of local culture: social and political activism. Born in the UK, Chris Reilly’s professional life has taken him all over the world, working in business development and senior sales roles, specifically in the fields of new technologies and media. Chris became a green card holder while working in the United States, and became a naturalized American citizen in 2001. While living in New York he worked on the presidential campaigns for John Kerry and Barack Obama. Later, his love of his adopted country led him to want to continue to stay involved even from afar. In 2009, his work brought him and his family to Barcelona, where he became heavily involved in non-profit organization Democrats Abroad, which—among other things—works to encourage American citizens living abroad to register to vote.

We interview Esther Gimeno Miró. She is a computational linguist, conversational AI specialist, technology project manager and educator who has worked for multinational tech companies on the development of projects such as conversational assistants like Siri and Alexa, and large language models, or the AI programming that makes programs like ChatGPT possible. Esther is also an independent musician, and the co-founder and President of CABE, a non-profit organization that works to support emerging artists all across Spain. The non-profit organization is run by musicians, for musicians, with the goal of creating a space where artists can support one another and share their musical and management skills.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we go behind the scenes with Yodé Olubajo. Born in London, raised in Lagos, he later lived in Venice, where he was known for his cabaret performances and parties. He speaks four languages—English, Yoruba, Italian and Spanish—and is known for his fun, flamboyant personality and style. He later moved to Barcelona, and in 2022, he created the jazz club and piano bar, Velvet Room born out of a sense of nostalgia for the sophistication and glamour of the 1940s and 1950s.

In our first interview of 2025, we go behind the scenes with Laura Avery, events organizer and co-founder of local non-profit organization Fashion Cares. Laura was born in the UK, but has made Barcelona her home for the past ten years. She was an English teacher in London, Lisbon, and Santander, until she made a career change and decided to spend the next fifteen years in fashion print media in London and Mumbai. She later went on to become a fashion lecturer at the London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts in London. After that, Laura moved to Barcelona, where she co-founded the nonprofit organization Fashion Cares in 2021. It organizes primarily fashion-related events in support of charitable foundations in and around the city of Barcelona, and holding a big annual fundraising event.

We go behind the scenes with director, screenwriter and editor Àlex Lora. His short films, documentaries and feature-length fiction works often address social issues related to identity, immigration, disability and youth, never shying away from tough or controversial subject matter. Lora’s works have been screened multiple times at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as many of the most prestigious festivals around the world. He was listed as one of the “Top 10 Spanish directors to watch” by Variety magazine’s Cannes Edition, and is known for his unique narrative and visual style.

This month we speak with Tarek Fresno, a Barcelona native, music aficionado, world traveler, and bartender at the historic Bar Marsella in the neighborhood of El Raval for seventeen years. Founded in 1820, Marsella is the oldest bar in the entire city; generations ago, it was Ernest Hemingway’s favorite hangout, and a hot spot for artists and intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Dalí, Gaudí, Picasso and many more were known to stop by for a drink or three. The bar’s signature cocktail — absinthe, the star drink of 19th-century Parisian bohemians — has remained the same despite the passing of the years.

Welcome back to the Metropolitan Culture Corner after our summer break! We start off the 2024 fall season with an interview with film producer and visual artist Mara Adina. Born in Transylvanian, Romania, she now splits her time between London and Barcelona. Together with her sister, director Ilinca Calugareanu, she started the film and documentary production company Vernon Films in 2012. Their film projects have been screened at major film festivals such as Sundance and the Clermont Ferrand International Film Festival, and on platforms like Netflix, Hulu and HBO Max, among others. Aside from her success in the world of cinema, Mara is also an accomplished abstract painter. Her work is characterized by intense colors, layered textures and broad brush strokes. Mara’s first solo exhibition was here in Barcelona this past spring, titled Feel with Abandon, and she has another in the works as we speak.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we go behind the scenes with soprano and musicologist Dr. Patricia Caicedo, whose academic and creative work centers on Latin American and Iberian art song. She regularly gives lectures and master classes at music conferences and universities around the world, has released 11 albums, and has published multiple books as well as scholarly editions of scores. She is the founder of the Barcelona Festival of Song, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. Patricia is also the creator of Mundo Arts: a music publishing house, independent record label and online store which supports various projects in Spain, Latin America and the US. But her mission to get the word out about the music she’s passionate about doesn’t stop there: she hosts a podcast, Latin American and Iberian Art Song, in which she interviews composers, musicologists and other international experts, and she is the creator of EYECatalunya, an interdisciplinary platform dedicated to promoting Catalan artists internationally.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we interview soul singer Clarence Bekker, known as one of the most dynamic and explosive front men in all of Spain. Over the years, he has been a part of a number of notable musical projects, from Swinging Soul Machine to Barcelona’s own 08001, to the international musical project and non-profit organization Playing for Change. This last one took him on the road all over the globe, and the project’s videos have racked up over 200 million views. But even before that, he had singles on the UK charts back in the 1990s; today, he’s known as the face of the Clarence Bekker Band, which has toured Brazil, Morocco, Japan, Italy, Spain, Australia, and beyond.

Our guest this month is singer, songwriter and guitarist Carlos Mendoza. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, he has been a Barcelona resident for several decades. He moved here with the other members of one of his bands, a rock group called Luz Verde. Since then, he has been nominated for a Latin Grammy for his work with them; they have released seven albums, and have legions of fans around the Spanish-speaking world, especially in Latin America. And for the past decade, Carlos has also been an integral part of rock and rumba band Alma de Boquerón, which started out as a fun bar band but has since grown to a six-piece powerhouse that regularly plays clubs and festivals. He’s equally at home on big stages as on small ones—or in an ER clinic, tending to a patient’s illness or injury. Yes, Grammy Nominee Carlos Mendoza is also a clinical immunologist, and is currently also getting a master’s degree in emergency medicine.

Our guest this month is Ukrainian artist Natalia Revoniuk. While she splits her time between Ukraine and the UK, she was just in Barcelona, exhibiting her work as a part of the 2024 Woman’s Essence international art showcase, where she was one of the recipients of the Woman Art Award, which highlights notable female visual artists from all over the world. Natalia was born in Lviv, Ukraine, and moved to the UK in 2022. Her world travels have taken her to 85 countries; she has carved a distinctive artistic path with her paintings that combine traditional painting with concepts ranging from the modern to the ancient, from graphic design to dot art similar to the Cucuteni-Trypillya people, and what she calls Transformational Energy Art and Visionary Art. Natalia has had or participated in over 35 solo or group exhibitions in Italy, the UK, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and Spain; she is also the art curator of the platform Forum Ukraine. Her motto is to leave the world better than we found it, reflecting her commitment to using art as a catalyst for positive change.

We go behind the scenes with documentary film and television director, producer, editor, cameraman and much more, Marcel Llorens. Born in Barcelona, Marcel’s love of all things cinema was sparked by watching old movies with his father. He studied audiovisual communication at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and the Institut Ramon Llull, and went on to work on publicity shoots as a freelancer for companies such as Levi's, HP, Samsung, Puma, Ticketmaster, Nokia, Garmin, and others. He would later work as cameraman and editor for various television programs for TV3, Interzona.tv, Movistar+, but discovered his true calling when he started directing and filming documentaries. His current project, a documentary about the iconic Mexican song "La Llorona," has not only gained him international recognition even before it’s been officially released—it just won the CaixaForum+ and IN-EDIT music documentary film festival competition this year—but it also changed his life completely. Marcel now splits his time between Barcelona and Mexico City, where over the past four years he has worked on a documentary for Mexican television station Canal 22, music videos for artists such as La Malinche, La Bruja de Texcoco, Antonio Hidalgo and more, as well as his project La Llorona El Documental. Marcel and his family are also involved with the non-profit organization Ni Una Menos, which works to raise awareness for the thousands of women who have been murdered or gone missing in Mexico.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we interview publicist, music journalist, author and poet Alicia Rodríguez. As a music publicist, she has represented some of Spain's top artists (Nat Simons, Elefantes, A Contra Blues) and has promoted tours by world-renowned international artists such as Van Morrison, Simple Plan, The Jayhawks, Jackson Browne, Yes, Lucinda Williams and many others. Alicia has also worked in production and communication for festivals (BBK Bilbao Music Legends, Rock Fest, Primavera Sound, Sónar) and cultural exhibitions such as David Bowie Is at the Barcelona Museum of Design. As a journalist, Alicia has contributed to some of Spain's leading music magazines—Ruta66, Rockdelux, MondoSonoro, Popular1 and more—as well as radio stations, television stations, newspapers and other publications. Besides her talent for promoting others, Alicia is a published poet, and is planning the release of a book of short stories later this year or early next. She also teaches summer classes at music production school SAE in Barcelona, organizes the annual educational sessions School of Rock for the Universitat de Barcelona, and is involved with numerous programs for La CIBA, a women’s resource center in Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

Born in Russia and based in Barcelona for the past seven years, Julia Buruleva's work combines photography, videography, installation and performance. The way she plays with the scenery, props, lighting effects and other elements creates a surreal world filled with contrasts and symbolism. This is true whether she’s setting up a fashion shoot or a commercial shoot for an advertisement for a major brand, or if she’s planning one of her eye-catching personal artistic projects. Her work has been published in magazines such as Elle, InStyle, Latest, Rolling Stone Argentina and more, everywhere from the US to the UK, from France to China, from Italy to Malaysia. Her projects over the past several years include “Beach is a New Theater"—a series of improvised, open-call, participatory photo shoots on Barcelona public beaches—to “Synchronization,” a series of complex shoots on international locations which combines elements of photography, land art, performance and digital art.

In this first interview of the new year, we go behind the scenes with visual artist and jewelry maker, Stéphanie Barbié. Born in Ages, in France, she has lived in Barcelona since 2004 and opened her current studio space in Gràcia in 2016. A jeweler by training, but a lover of interior decoration, design, art and anthropology, she decided to combine her passions by creating “jewelry” that goes beyond the limits of the body—unique decorations for the interior spaces where we spend much of our lives. Whether it’s a custom wedding ring or a wall hanging, each of her pieces is one of a kind, and is made with the idea of bringing light, color, and a touch of extra happiness to the everyday lives of her customers.

This month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner we’ll be exploring a different facet of what makes up human culture: health and overall wellness with naturopath, acupuncturist and nutritionist Laia Bramona. Laia’s work involves helping her patients relieve their physical pain, digestive issues, hormonal imbalances, as well as manage stress, depression and anxiety. In 2002, she began her training in traditional Chinese medicine and naturopathy at the CENAC (Centro d’Estudios de Naturopatia y Acupunctura de Catalunya) and studied nutrition at the IFPS Roger de Llúria institute. She works with the trauma unit of the Remei Clinic and with the Osteopathic Clinic of Dr. David Ponce, and has her own private practice. She is also a neuropathy teacher at ISMET (Higher Institute of Traditional Medicines).