UB Joan Brossa Chair
The UB Joan Brossa Chair was set up in 2022 to focus on the in-depth study of Brossa’s work and everything that surrounds it, pursuing teaching, research and training activities in all related areas.
Director
Presentation
The UB Joan Brossa Chair grows out of a shared interest of the Joan Brossa Foundation and the UB in promoting research, teaching and activities of scientific interest on the subject of Joan Brossa in the fields of poetry, theatre, visual arts, contemporary thought and citizenship.
In addition, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) is home to the Joan Brossa Collection, which was donated to the museum by the Joan Brossa Foundation. This collection will serve as the starting point for a large number of research projects, thanks to an agreement reached between the two institutions.
As a result, the main aims of the UB Joan Brossa Chair will be:
- 1. To promote research at the UB that looks at the work of Brossa in the various creative worlds in which he moved.
- 2. To stimulate contemporary creation based on Brossa’s work.
- 3. To spread knowledge of Brossa’s work in all of its many aspects across different educational areas.
- 4. To encourage new editions of works by and about Brossa to prompt new ways of looking at his oeuvre.
Team
Bordons is a university professor in the Department of Linguistic and Literary Education, and Teaching and Learning of Experimental Sciences and Mathematics of the University of Barcelona.
Bordons earned her PhD in Catalan Philology after writing a thesis on Joan Brossa and she has worked extensively on the poet’s oeuvre. Notable publications include an introduction to Brossa’s poetry entitled Introducció a la poesia de Joan Brossa (1988); her collaborations in the catalogue for the Joan Miró Foundation entitled Joan Brossa o la revolta poètica (2001); an anthology entitled A partir del silenci (2001); the coordination of the book entitled Aprendre amb Joan Brossa (2003); the preparation and curation of various exhibitions on the work of Joan Brossa and their corresponding catalogues; an edition of the following books entitled Carrer de Joan Ponç (2010), Joan Brossa: Prosa completa i textos esparsos (2013), Joan Brossa: poemes visuals (2014), Joan Brossa: catálogo razonado de poesía visual 1941-1970 (2019) and Joan Brossa: Poesia completa 1940-1960 (2021); and dozens of articles on a wide range of aspects of Brossa’s oeuvre that have appeared in specialist journals.
In addition, Bordons has served as director of the Joan Brossa Archive and overseen a number of editions of Brossa’s work (such as the reissue of his complete “scenic poetry” and of his complete poetry). At present, Bordons is vice-president in charge of research at the Joan Brossa Foundation.
Figueras’s main line of research is contemporary graphics from the perspective of history, technique (e.g. sustainability in art: http://www.ub.edu/gravat/) and creativity, with a particular focus on the art book. Figueras also works on methods of artificial vision applied to the automated interpretation of collections of artistic images. She takes part in exhibitions and conferences, teaches courses and leads workshops on sustainable printmaking and artist books. In addition, she has published a variety of papers and books on the subject.
Figueras is a member of the research group “Painting, Drawing and Printmaking versus New Procedures and Materials” (PI: Bibiana Crespo) and a member of the group “Cataloguing Artists’ Works based on Automatic Image Annotation” (PI: Ferran Comes Reverter). Lastly, she is joint PI of the group “Potion (Art, Poetry and Education)”, together with Glòria Bordons, and she takes an active part in a number of international research projects involving the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) and the fine arts academies of Bologna and Palermo (Italy).
Marrugat holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies from the University of Sheffield (UK) and a PhD in Catalan Philology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. At present, he is a Serra Húnter lecturer in Catalan literature at the University of Barcelona.
Marrugat has specialized in three areas of research: the relationships between modernity and postmodernity; post-Symbolism and the poetry of the first half of the twentieth century; and the avant-gardes and experimental literature. Against this backdrop, he has published a variety of studies on Joan Brossa, such as a book entitled El saltamartí de Joan Brossa: les mil cares del poeta (2009), as well as Poéticas experimentales catalanas (2018), which is a history and anthology of experimental Catalan literature from the avant-gardes to the present day, giving special attention to figures such as Joan Brossa, Guillem Viladot, Carles Hac Mor, Patrick Gifreu, Perejaume and J. M. Calleja, to name but a few.
Marrugat is joint editor-in-chief of the journal on language and literature called Els Marges and has jointly edited volumes 6 and 7 of the new history of Catalan literature entitled Història de la Literatura Catalana, together with Jordi Castellanos.
Maria Canelles is a cultural manager with years of experience in literature and theatre. In 2021, she became co-director of the Free Arts Centre at the Joan Brossa Foundation, a centre specializing in experimental poetry and projects that bridge the gap between performing and visual arts. She studied Humanities and Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, followed by a master’s degree in Theatre Studies. In 2016, she worked with Adrià Aubert to dramatize Pere Calders’ novel Ronda naval sota la boira, and their adaptation was nominated for the Premis de la Crítica performing arts awards. Some of her texts have been published in anthologies (Grand Hotel, Univers 2022) or performed as dramatic readings (Estar bé, collective reading hosted by Glòria Balañà at the Sala Beckett, 2017). In September 2022, she published her first novel, Contra la nostàlgia (Angle Editorial, 2022).
Cultural manager and educator trained in Philosophy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and in performing arts at Nancy Tuñón. Currently, he participates in the Open Classroom of Live Arts and Contexts at the Vic Theater Institute. From 2022 he coordinates the educational program of the Joan Brossa Foundation, exploring the Brossian gesture as a methodology to expand the limits of language, and designing and accompanying artistic-educational projects with schools and institutes. It also explores the creation of spaces for critical reflection within the work and educational spheres.
Silvia Burset holds a PhD in Communication, Art and Education from the University of Barcelona. She is affiliated to the Department of Applied Didactics of the Faculty of Education of the UB, and she is a member of the consolidated research group in Heritage Didactics, Comprehensive Museography and New Technologies (DIDPATRI) and of the Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group in Audiovisual Communication (GID-CAV).
She has published several articles and book chapters related to her lines of research, which are focused on the teaching and learning of plastic arts and on the study of the interrelations between text and image in different contexts and formats of visual culture. She has also collaborated with different institutions and centres in the creation of teaching resources, materials and courses. She also works on different innovation and research projects focused on the development of competences and assessment in the bachelor degrees Teacher in Primary Education, and Audiovisual Communication.
In the area of management, she currently is the Dean of the Faculty of Education of the UB, and she is also the coordinator of the university master's degree in Interdisciplinary Education in the Arts.
