It's happening
SURES Experience.
For three days at the end of June, the city of Cádiz became the center of design and craftsmanship.
A meeting of past and present, between tradition and modernity, where sustainability, culture, and art were the foundations of the entire event.
An exhibition filled with vibrant art, workshops, fashion shows, and much more.
Another section, TALKS, in which I was able to actively participate, was very interesting. With the participation of professionals from all over the world, we discussed the challenges facing contemporary artisans, their situation, and new business models. Different points of view were shared by the protagonists. We also discussed the influence of the south and listened to great masters who shared their projects.
The Festival took place at the Provincial Council Palace and in Plaza de España, an incomparable setting.
The Festival is a personal project of Ana Sánchez and Daniel Vázquez, owners of one of the most exclusive contemporary crafts and design stores in Spain, CASA LAMAR.
Designers and lovers of their homeland. They lived in London for years, then decided to return to their homeland and do their part to showcase their native talent.
SURES was their dream, their commitment. A space full of art and creativity.
Heartfelt congratulations. It couldn’t have been better organized. An incredible magic was created between visitors and exhibitors.
I hope we’ll meet again next year in the same place under the same name, SURES.
These gatherings are essential if we want to support contemporary craftsmanship, trades, traditions, and modernity.
Curated and directed by Ana Sánchez and Daniel Vázquez @casa_lamar
Sponsored by: @diputaciondecadiz @ayuntamientodecadiz @puertodecadiz
Evolution of craftsmanship in Spain with
Macarena Navarro_Reverter
I Congreso Internacional de Artesanía
June 6, 2025. León.
The 1st International Crafts Congress of Castilla y León was a pioneering event, bringing together more than 150 professionals, experts, institutions, and leading artisans from across Europe to discuss the present and future of artistic and traditional crafts. The goal is to position Castilla y León as a benchmark in contemporary crafts, address the challenges facing the sector, and highlight its economic, social, and cultural impact in the 21st century. I found it very interesting; highly topical topics were discussed. Congratulations to the organization, Foacal.
Visit to the Antonino and Cinia Cerezales Foundation.
June 2025
An interesting visit to the Antonino and Cinia Cerezales Foundation
The visit began with lunch with the Foundation team. We then visited the Foundation with Alfredo Puente, curator of the Cerezales Foundation and the exhibition.
Located since its inception in the former schools of Cerezales del Condado, 23 kilometers from León, the Foundation is a private institution focused on the development of the region and the transfer of knowledge through cultural production and ethno-education. The continuous increase in the activities carried out at the center—exhibitions, concerts, workshops, seminars, residency projects, in-house productions, co-productions with other institutions and stakeholders, festivals, trips, routes, projects related to the study and respect of the environment, and more—led to the decision to expand the facilities.
The new headquarters were designed by Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s studio.
LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2025 awards ceremony
Madrid, May 30, 2025
The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2025 awards ceremony took place in Madrid. The event, which celebrates artisanal excellence, was held at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, where the finalist works were also exhibited. This year’s winner was Japanese artist Kunimasa Aoki.
Congratulations to the entire loewefoundation team, to Sheila Loewe, to Alberto Merlo, and to the entire team for this wonderful celebration and for all the work they do throughout the year to select the wonderful works of art that we can see at the Museo Thyssen! Thank you for bringing this gem of an exhibition to Madrid!
A tour of a selection of artisan workshops for a new project. May 2025
Visiting “my artisan friends” in Galicia is always a very enriching experience. Doing so as part of a project that will showcase their work beyond our borders is even more so. This is a project we’ve been working on for some time; we’ve already made several trips to select some workshops to collaborate with.
This last trip was to finalize, finalize, place orders… now underway. A reality.
I’ll keep you updated; I can’t give any more information for now.
I just wanted to express my pride in being able to showcase the excellence and professionalism of Galician craftsmanship. When you have the opportunity to show their work to people outside our country, our world, and see their enthusiasm, you understand that we have extraordinary artisans. Contemporaries without renouncing their essence, people who understand the importance of providing good service, advancing designs, and quality.
I have no doubt about the role of Elena Fabeiro, manager of the Public Crafts Foundation of Galicia, for her immense work over many years. Congratulations, Elena.
Thank you to the workshops we visited.
Sargadelos , laura_delgado_ceramica
Belategui Regueiro, Ana Tenorio witchneeds
pal.lium, Sangiovanni Lorenzo
Weaving networks. Wool. Vanishing heritage.
For centuries, wool has been one of the greatest sources of wealth, pride and social value in our country. However, today it faces a critical moment.
This project is a call to recover a legacy, highlight the value of a sustainable resource and give it back the place it has traditionally and culturally occupied in Spain.A key project for the country that involves much more than the recovery of a cultural tradition: it also involves the recovery of a sector, the livestock and wool textile production sector, and focuses on an activity with a marked sustainable character and conservation of the biodiversity of species on livestock routes.
At Madrid Design Festival, and under the title Weaving Networks. Wool. Vanishing heritage we are carrying out a transversal exercise to highlight and make visible the role of design in the face of specific social issues. We began this exercise in the last edition with an approach to depopulation and a focus on rural environments as centres of creation.
In this edition, we focus our attention on wool. As a festival we want to create a space in which, through design, its agents can intervene in this reality and take advantage of the great speaker that this meeting offers to make visible and contribute to the necessary change.
We are launching this claim to recover a legacy, to highlight the value of a sustainable resource and to give it back the place that it has traditionally and culturally occupied in Spain. This is a key project for the country that involves much more than the recovery of a cultural tradition: it also involves the recovery of a sector, the livestock and textile wool production sector, and puts the focus on an activity with a marked sustainable character and the conservation of the biodiversity of the species on livestock routes.
With this initiative we want to invite design professionals, artists, companies, institutions and citizens to join this movement to protect and revalue Spanish wool.
Project promoters
Professor in the
Master's Program La Fabrica.
Management of cultural projects.
The Master´s Program La Fábrica. Management of cultural projects, offers a complete overview of the professional environment of culture, public and private organisations and different profiles, with the help of more than one hundred outstanding professionals with whom you will expand your contact list.
The content of the programme in the classroom is structured in 4 modules that cover the entire process of developing a cultural project. It is completed with the hours dedicated to professional visits, project tutorials and professional internships. The classes take place at La Fábrica’s facilities.
What it is
A complete immersion course in La Fábrica’s projects, with the help of its protagonists, group work sessions and professional internships at La Fábrica, plus your individual work on a supervised personal project. A complete, updated and in-depth tour of the key issues for managing a cultural project, based on real and current cases.
For whom
Aimed at professionals who develop their careers working in cultural organisations or practising their profession as freelancers; to cultural entrepreneurs who want to start their own project and to professionals with experience in other fields who want to reorient themselves towards culture.
Approach
Share with you the 25 years of experience of La Fábrica, in a program with a very practical orientation. The students, in very small groups, get to know the La Fábrica team and a hundred outstanding professionals from its list of collaborators: directors of cultural organizations, public administrations, sponsors, commissioners, designers, producers, creators, media…
With them they go through all the steps necessary to develop a cultural project, covering the design and production of content, the programming of activities, their communication and marketing and their financing..
Pre-opening of the Madrid Design Festival
Madrid, February 5, 2025
An unforgettable meeting. What a joy! As every year at this time, Madrid becomes the capital of the design world. Tonight I had the pleasure of being invited by Madrid Design Festival 25 to the pre-opening cocktail party of the Festival. I love these events where we meet friends, collaborators, design lovers. It is the starting shot to meet again in all the activities with which Madrid Design Festival 25 surprises us every year. Thanks to its director @alvaromatias_, you outdo yourself every year, to @pilarlleo his right hand, to @javibardon and @oscar_lafabrica and to the whole team of @lafabrica_ Thank you for the effort and congratulations for making all of us who work in culture feel like “family”. You are the best!
Presentation of the second edition of the book Artesanía No Prato at the FITUR pavilion
24 January 2025
The presentation took place at FITUR, ON January 24, 2024 in the Galicia pavilion.
Mr. Gabriel Alén. Director of Commerce and Consumer Affairs of the Xunta de Galicia, as well as Ms. Elena Fabeiro. Xerente Galician Crafts Foundation
Podcast: Spanish craftsmanship today, with WordPressCourse
A very pleasant talk about the situation of Spanish craftsmanship. How it came into this world, its evolution and current situation. Thanks Jerzy.
Workshops: New Crafts for New Ecologies
Chantada, Lugo. Galicia, September 21 and 22, 2024
Galician Crafts Public Foundation is organizing the “New crafts for new ecologies” conference, in collaboration with Espacio Vilaseco, which took place in San Cristovo de Mouricios (Chantada, Lugo) on September 21 and 22. This meeting will focus on the potential of the rural environment as a generator of new avenues for future cultural, social, environmental and economic development and will discuss tradition, design and innovation, biomaterials, trades, local resources, ecology and the circular economy.
The conferences are curated by Raquel Buj, architect and designer specialized in research and experimentation with materials and biofabrication for fashion; and by Carlos Jiménez Cenamor, ceramist and architect, winner of the 2023 Artisan Product Award at the Crafts Awards of the Region of Murcia. The speakers are characterized by their research work on materials, traditional crafts and their hybridization with contemporary techniques and technologies.
I had the pleasure of coordinating the “DIVERSE ECOLOGIES TABLE” with the presentations of the designers/researchers and creators:
Maria Mallo (Madrid)
Paula Bruna (Barcelona)
Attua Aparicio (Valladolid/London)
