Event
Entre lo personal y lo colectivo: Narrativas Afrodescendientes en España.
Date: March 13, 2025, 7 PM
Location: Espacio de Culturas
Language: Spanish
Join us for an enriching evening of conversation as we delve into Afrodescendant narratives in Spain. This event brings together two of Spain’s leading voices in visual and literary arts, Rubén H. Bermúdez and Lucía Asué Mbomío, in dialogue with Silvia Albert Sopale, Spring 2025 KJC Chair at Espacio de Culturas @KJCC, and moderated by Eva Copeland.
Event Description
"Entre lo personal y lo colectivo" explores the intersection of individual experiences and collective histories in shaping Afrodescendant narratives in contemporary Spain. Through their creative works, both Rubén H. Bermúdez and Lucía Asué Mbomío highlight the complexities of Black identity, the persistence of systemic challenges, and the transformative power of storytelling in combating invisibility and bias.
About the Speakers
Rubén H. Bermúdez
Rubén H. Bermúdez (Madrid, 1981) is a visual artist known for his project Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro? (And You, Why Are You Black?), which has evolved into a photobook and the award-winning film A todos nos gusta el plátano (We All Like Bananas) (2021). He is the co-founder of Conciencia Afro, a cultural platform dedicated to raising awareness about the Black, African, and Afro-descendant community in Spain. Rubén has shared his expertise globally, conducting workshops and lectures at institutions such as Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Northwestern University in Chicago, and NYU. In 2024, the Museo Reina Sofía added his work to its collection, cementing his status as a trailblazer in contemporary visual arts. Currently, he is exploring video game creation as a new medium for storytelling.
Lucía Asué Mbomío
Lucía Asué Mbomío Rubio (Madrid, 1981) is a multifaceted journalist, writer, and filmmaker. With a career spanning roles as a TV host, columnist, and documentary filmmaker, she has amplified underrepresented voices in media. Lucía’s written works include Las que se atrevieron (2017), Hija del Camino (2019)—soon to be adapted into a Netflix series—and Tierra de la Luz, a novel exploring the realities of female agricultural laborers in Europe. She has worked extensively to highlight Afrodescendant and feminist narratives through her contributions to outlets like El País, Mundo Negro, and Afroféminas. Her commitment to representation and advocacy has made her a leading figure in Spanish cultural discourse.
Silvia Albert Sopale
Silvia Albert Sopale is a Spanish Afrodescendant actress, writer, and cultural organizer. As the Spring 2025 KJC Chair at Espacio de Culturas, her groundbreaking works, such as Blackface y otras vergüenzas, interrogate racial dynamics and Afrodescendant experiences in Spain.
Eva María Copeland
Eva María Copeland is Associate Professor of Spanish at Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA). Born and raised in Zaragoza, Spain, she received her B.A. from Colgate University in 1994 and her PhD from Stony Brook University in 2004. Her research and teaching focus on questions of race, sexuality, gender, and national identity in the cultural production of 19th-21st century Spain. Her essays on nineteenth-century Spanish writers Benito Pérez Galdós, Eduardo López Bago, and Eva Canel have been published by top peer-reviewed academic journals such as Anales Galdosianos, Romance Quarterly, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, and Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades/ Journal of Gender and Sexuality Studies (REGS). Eva’s current work also encompasses recent texts by Afro-Spanish authors and artists. Her article, “On Blackness and Belonging in Contemporary Spain: Desirée Bela-Lobedde’s Ser mujer negra en España” published in Hispania, received the 2023 American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) Outstanding Scholarly Publication Award. Recent work includes “Afro-Spanish Countervisual Genealogies of Blackness in Rubén H. Bermúdez’s Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro?” (Journal of the African Literature Association, fall 2024) and “La madre patria: Domesticity, Empire, and the Affective in Eva Canel’s El agua turbia (1899)” (forthcoming in Hispanic Review, spring 2025). Her work has been supported by a Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges (CFD) post-doctoral fellowship, and by Dickinson research and course-reassigned time grants sponsored by a Mellon Foundation “Beyond the New Normal” institutional grant. She is working on two projects: a book on Blackness and cultural memory in modern and contemporary Spain and a second project on gender, race, nation, and the affective in Eva Canel’s fiction and theatre.