Spain, guest country of the Europalia cultural festival with Goya as its centre

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, together with Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), the main collaborating institution, the Ministry of Culture, the Instituto Cervantes and the Commissioner for the celebration of Spain ‘s 50 years of Freedom, have today presented a preview of the programme of the EUROPALIA 2025 Festival. In its thirtieth edition, the festival will pay tribute to Spain and its inexhaustible cultural wealth, under the artistic direction of Maral Kekejian on the Spanish side, whose team of ad hoc Spanish commissioners joins the festival’s permanent artistic team, directed by Dirk Vermaelen.

The festival’s programme, which will feature around 250 artists, will cover a wide variety of disciplines: from visual arts, theatre, dance, architecture, film, music, literature, graphic novels, illustration and design, to performances, debates and digital creation, as well as transversal and hybrid content and formats. In addition to existing works, the programme will also incorporate new commissioned projects and artist residencies.

EUROPALIA ESPAÑA 2025 plans to hold more than 200 activities, including around 10 exhibitions, more than 20 proposals related to plastic/visual creation, 40 musical activities, 70 performing arts projects, 50 film screenings, 30 initiatives on literature and thought and 20 proposals from other disciplines.

The main exhibition of the festival, which will take place at Bozar, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, will be dedicated to Francisco de Goya, under the title ‘Goya today: moving forward by retreating’. Organised by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and curated by Rocío Gracia and Leticia Sastre, this exhibition proposes a contemporary reflection on the work of the great Spanish painter as the axis of a Spanish artistic tradition that advances by integrating its past. Considered one of the great precursors of contemporary art, Goya took painting beyond academicism, integrating the popular and the cultured, reflection and scathing criticism, into a plastic language that is still current.

The exhibition section will include the collaboration in loans and curatorships of the Subdirectorate General of State Museums of the Ministry of Culture, as well as loans from the Museo Nacional del Prado and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

The programme will also include the performance of major shows, such as ‘Afanador’ by the National Ballet of Spain, and the co-production of the National Dramatic Centre ‘1936’, directed by Andrés Lima, companies from the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM) of the Ministry of Culture; as well as the production ‘El maleficio de la mariposa’ by the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía.

EUROPALIA FESTIVAL 2025

Founded in 1969, the biennial EUROPALIA festival aims to promote the culture and arts of a specific country or theme. To this end, in collaboration with more than sixty Belgian institutions spread throughout the country, it organises a wide-ranging cultural programme that takes place not only in Brussels and Antwerp but also in many other locations such as Charleroi, Bruges, Namur, Liège, Ghent, Leuven, Mons, Eupen, St. Vith, Great Hornu, Mariemont, Ostend, Aalst and Mechelen.

Spain was invited to participate in 1985 as a preliminary presentation for its entry into the then European Economic Community. Forty years later, coinciding with the celebration of the ’50 Years of Spain in Freedom’, the current moment offers a privileged opportunity to reflect on the recent historical development of Spain and Europe. It will be a unique opportunity to show, through art and knowledge, the social, cultural and economic changes, as well as the progress achieved in terms of rights during the last decades, underlining the importance of safeguarding this legacy and way of life and continuing to advance it.