LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

I officially became Director of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (KJCC) in September 2020, however, months before I began working with Laura Turégano, Associate Director (Interim Director, 2019-2020), on planning how to continue the goals of our center (academic, cultural, and public outreach) within the context of the significant challenges brought about by the pandemic, which included, most importantly, a shift from our in-person events and programs to operating entirely online.

It was clear from our first meetings that we wanted to find a way to maintain the highest quality of programs, expand the reach of those programs, and provide programs that were meaningful, dynamic, and timely while also being of interest to both the students and faculty of NYU and the broader public we seek to engage.

In the past, we have treasured not only the programs themselves but also the conversations afterward. How could we adapt our approach while still striving to convey the vitality and energy of those connections online? How could we push ourselves to think of new initiatives and new ways of using our platforms while working within the constraints of time, place, and (sometimes) language that operating online introduced? Our answer was to actively and creatively open the center up to new ideas and partnerships.

Key to our ability to continue the many programs that are hallmarks of the center, and embark on new ones, are the people who have helped us to do so: our administrative assistant Luis Alfonso Pérez, our creative partners Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger, our 25th-anniversary Atrium series coordinator Marina Garde, our graphic designer Estefanía Angueyra, and the members of our advisory committee.

Throughout this year we have also sought to more actively incorporate the voices of our undergraduate and graduate students as organizers of events, moderators of conversations, and initiators of new directions.

We are grateful for the extraordinary effort this team has made to ensure that this past year would be as interesting, engaging, and accessible as any other. This report captures a snapshot of these programs, and we hope you will learn from this summary more about the many colleagues who worked with us over this extraordinary year.

You will see recorded here, among the many individual events, programs, and co-sponsorships a series of ongoing and new initiatives including:

The King Juan Carlos I of Spain and Andrés Bello Postdoctoral Fellows

SONORIDAD.ES: Artist-in-Residence Program (2020-2022)

Conversatorios: Art and Activism Series

el taller @ KJCC

Portuguese and Spanish Student Association (PASSO)

Creative Writing in Spanish Series (CWS)

KJCC Poetry Series

DramaLab 2021

Cortocircuito - the Latino Short Film Festival of New York

Atlántica Sessions (partnership with WNYU)

Sulo: the Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU

KJCC Scholar-in-Residence

25th Anniversary - Atrium: Voices from the KJCC

We look forward to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU in April 2022. Please subscribe to the Newsletter to learn about these upcoming programs, events, exhibitions, and initiatives.

Saludos,

Jordana Mendelson

Director, KJCC

Click here to download

Prior reports can be found at https://www.kjcc.org/about