Cultural videopodcast in Valencian that explores murals and sculptures from the campus of the Universitat de València in order to connect contemporary art with sociocultural issues of interest for students of several disciplines.
Awarded proposal within the fifth edition of the ACTIVA CULTURA awards
La nau en l’aire is a cultural podcast in Valencian made by doctoral students in Art History, ––Mar Lloret and Mar Sanz– about the murals and sculptures that are distributed in the three campus of the Universitat de València. Through a friend’s conversation, they try to link contemporary art with sociocultural issues of interest for students of several disciplines.
The project wants to connect this cultural heritage to students, introduce the artists and the idea of every art work and invite listeners to reflect on the public art that is around us. With the purpose of connecting actuality, critical thinking, and cultural heritage, every episode is built around one of the art works, which allows them to open a weekly topic and analyse it from multiple perspectives.
Finally, the initiative culminates in a live open event where hosts from other cultural podcasts will participate as guests, with the aim of supporting Valencian creation and fostering its use in cultural diffusion.
Episode 1 – “Arte en el espacio público” (Art in public spaces)
This first episode works as an introduction to the cultural dimension of the podcast. We discuss murals by Julietta xlf in the Faculty of Geography and History, in public spaces and we reflect on how it contributes to make the city more representative of its community. To go deeper, we have Lucía Bozas, who explains us the cultural project Catarroja, aimed to recover and value the heritage of a municipality affected by the DANA. We link the topic with the project Murales, of the campus from the Universitat de València, an initiative that projects contemporary art with university spaces.
Episode 2 – “Sinergias de arte y ciencia” (Art and science synergies)
This episode explores the presence of nature in arts and how scientific and artistic disciplines dialogue with each other. Laura Apostólico (Master’s Degree in History of Art and Visual Culture) participates in this episode. She will explain the iconographic meaning of the kingfisher and its presence in different works of art. The part that articulates the episode is the Atlas mural (Marina Iglesias, 2018, Faculty of Biology), inspired by the Pomar codex.
Episode 3 – “Altruismo fallero” (Fallero’s altruism)
This week, we address the Valencian intangible culture, focusing on Fallas as a World Heritage Site. Jordi Galán joins us. He is a student from Restauracin who, in addition, is also an artist of Fallas. In this episode, he explains his profession to us. We link the topic with the sculpture called Altruismo (Chule, 2024, Faculty of Medicine). Although the work does not directly talk about Fallas, it shares the idea of a gesture towards the community. The sculpture, made with a 40 % of recycled materials, also opens a debate about the future of the Fallas’ materials and the sustainability of the sector.
Episode 4 – “Música en la construcción de identidades” (Music in the construction of identities)In this episode, we talk about Valencian music and how the traditional repertoire co-lives with the current Valencian music. Arnau Millet, graduated in History, joins us, a researcher of the music role in the current conflict in Palestine. The part of heritage that the programme articulates is the piano located in the hall of the Faculty of Teacher Training, an instrument that turns the hall into a creative and community space.
Episode 5 – “Memoria y archivo contra el olvido” (Memories and archives from oblivion)
We dedicate this episode to talk about memory as a tool and as an object of study. Inevitably, this brings us to the archive work, essential for any rigorous research. Nerea Iza, trained at the Universitat de València and current researcher in the archive of la Alhambra, joins us. We link this topic with the Plantas perdidas mural (Ernesto Casero, 2024, Burjassot Campus), a work that evokes extinct plant species. The author pays tribute to these species and condemns the rapid loss of biodiversity.
Episode 6 – “Pioneras a contraluz” (Trailblazers through backlighting)
We dedicate this episode to trailblazing women in different areas of knowledge, such as arts, sciences, literature, or historiography, with the aim to give visibility to figures that often stay set aside by the patriarchal slant and the lack of institutional recognition. The collaborator of this episode is Clara Solbes, professor from the History of Art Department, and member of the research project of ArthistFem, dedicated to recovering and analyzing women’s contributions to History of art. The work that articulates this programme is the Homenaje a las científicas anónimas mural (Tribute to anonymous scientific women) (Paula Bonet, 2024, Parc Científic).
Episode 7 – “Leer para volver a la tierra” (Reading to come back to Earth)
This programme addresses reading culture, but also wants to reflect on sustainability, material nature, and environment. As a guest, we have Pablo Lloret, former student of Audiovisual Communication in the UV and member of the podcast La Còmicteca, that will allow us to talk about the comic, graphic novels and contemporary forms of reading. We will establish the relation with the heritage through the sculptures Savia Sabia (Álvaro Tamarit, 2023, Faculty of Social Sciences) and Árbol del derecho (Alfredo Bayona, Faculty of Law).
Episode 8 – “Sobredosis de imágenes” (Overdose of images)
This episode reflects on the way in which new technologies have transformed our ways of communicating and the “poor image”, digital images of low-quality but mass circulation. Roser Lanuza, former student of Fine Arts, joins us. She will provide her critical look about digital visual culture. The mural that the episode articulates is Connecting people (Cachetejack, 2024, ETSE), which represents the communication through the screen and invites us to question the ambivalence of digital relations: on the one hand, immediacy, and on the other hand, emotional distance.
Final episode live – “Cultura valenciana: viva y en directo” (Valencian culture – broadcast)
For the final episode, we propose a live session with the participation of three podcasts that, besides having artistic and creative topics, they all are made in Valencian. This way, we want to contribute to the visibility and normality of Valencian in the cultural field. The invited podcasts are:
-"La còmicteca", dedicated to the comic and visual culture world.
-"Cinestèsia", focused on the cinema, the critic, and the audiovisual dissemination.
-"Un cabàs d’històries", a narrative and creative project that works from short story, imagination, and collective memory.
The podcast La Nau en l'Aire, created by two students of the Doctoral Programme in History of Art of the Universitat de València, is programmed under the framework of the fifth edition of the Activa Cultura call, of the Vice-Principal Organisation of Culture and Society of the Universitat de València.
Podcast
