14.4 km Award for Intercultural Dialogue

The project 14.4 km "Dialogue Between Two Shores" will be giving this award to artist Diego Moya at Casa Árabe on the upcoming date of Thursday, October 3.

The objective of the award is to give acknowledgment for the lifelong professional career of people who have stood out for their work to foment intercultural communication, knowledge and mutual respect between the two shores of the Mediterranean. Diego Moya is a role model in new abstraction and intercultural trends, as well as a tireless mediator between the two sides of the Straits of Gibraltar, a fervent admirer, student and disseminator of Arab culture, and an artist who perfectly represents the project’s values and spirit. Participating in the ceremony will be Santiago Olmo, a curator and art critic; Diego Rodríguez, director of the 14.4 kms Film Festival, and Eduardo López Busquets, General Director of Casa Árabe. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Casa Árabe Auditorium in Madrid (Calle Alcalá, 62). Free entrance until the room’s capacity is reached.
 

Diego Moya

Diego Moya (Sept. 26, 2013). Born in Jaén in 1943, Mr. Moya holds a degree in Architecture and has studied Fine Arts. Throughout his career as an artist, he has worked during different periods in sculpture, architecture and painting. However, the last of these has been his main form of expression since 1981, with a basis in abstract expressionism. Since 1991, he has spent lengthy time periods working at this study in Asilah, Morocco, researching the symbolic aspects of abstraction while studying Arab culture. In 1998, he founded the MEDOCC association, which carries out cultural exchange programs in the Maghreb. From 2000 to 2007, he organized the exhibitions Re.encuentro-Tawassul and Afinidades, an exhibition which traveled between both Morocco and Spain. The exhibits included notable artists from both countries, as well as colloquiums and round-table discussions in Casablanca, Rabat, Seville and Madrid. From 2008 to 2011, he directed the project Ilham-inspiración, which included the work of six Spanish artists who are inspired by Arab culture, to produce works which went to different countries in this region in a traveling exhibit, based on the legendary Damascus. This project was the origin of the series with the same name in his work. At present, he continues to carry out his work following criteria of interculturalism. He has belonged to Casa Árabe’s Advisory Board since 2012. His work has a presence in important international collections, both public and private, such as the Takamatsu Collection in Japan, the Royal Palace in Rabat and the Calcografía Nacional in Madrid. His exhibition activity has taken place between Europe and the Mediterranean at different private galleries such as the Laurens A. Daane Gallery in Amsterdam and Dialogue in Brussels. In Spain, he regularly holds exhibition in Madrid, at galleries which include Jorge Kreisler, May Moré and Esquina. In Morocco, his works have traveled through Casablanca, Marrakesh, Rabat, Tetouan and Tangier (Shart and Noir sur Blanc galleries, Musée de la Palmeraie and the Cervantes Institute).
 

Santiago Olmo

Mr. Olmo has worked as an independent exhibition curator and art critic since 1986. He collaborates with specialist publications and forms part of the editorial team of the journal Artecontexto (Madrid). He forms part of the team for the “Building Bridges” project at the University of Navarre Museum, which promotes dialogue between nineteenth-century photography and the present day, as well as directing the associated book collection. In 1998, he was a curator for Spain’s entry at the São Paulo Biennial. In 2010, he was a curator for the Thirty-first Biennial of Pontevedra, “Utrópicos: Central America and the Caribbean.” In 2012, he was a curator for the Guatemala Art Biennial. He has taken part as a curator in numerous exhibition projects in Europe, Africa and Latin America and cooperated with the Med-Occen Association on the project “Affinities” along with Moroccan art critic Farid Zahi. He also works in education within the fields of contemporary art and photography, and at the same time does photographic work. In his latest project, he deals with the city of Larache, Morocco.