The artistic collective Good Mix presented this Friday in Madrid his work ‘Alma’, co-created with the residents of Santander to “humanize” the city’s port, located in an industrial sector, with the idea of reproducing this alliance of art and citizenship in both cities (Madrid and Santander), as the main promoters of the project have advanced in a meeting with the media: Cantabria Labs, Tiempo de Arte and Puertos del Estado.
At a press conference held at the Thyssen-Bornesmiza Museumthe members of Boa Mistura, Pablo Purón and Javier Serrano, have explained how the creation of the mural was, which lasted for two years. Thus, Purón has emphasized that in this mural – as they usually do in other of their works – they sought to be in “harmony” with the context, so the first step was a meeting with 71 residents in Santander who were asked: “What does the sea mean for the city?”
Thus, in recognition of the “essence” of Santander, as the artist has pointed out, the word ‘Alma’ was chosen in a virtual vote in which more than 1,000 residents of the city participated. The artists painted the word with triplicate letters superimposed with turquoise, ocher and yellow tones, a palette chosen “with care”, as Serrano explained, and which interacts with each other due to the effect of transparency to, in this way, “enter fully into the city.”
Thus, have managed to transform the four industrial silos of the Port of Santander into a large participatory mural of more than 1,800 square meters. The project is the result of a listening process through participatory dynamics organized with residents of the city who shared their emotions, memories and words linked to the port and the city.
“SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION TOOL”
The work highlights a word that is “little talked about”, as the CEO and general director of Cantabria Labs, Susana Rodríguez Navarro, has indicated in this regard, which is why she has also highlighted the value of this project as “tool of social transformation”, by “generating shared beauty” and creating community in an industrial area, which is normally alien to citizens.
For her part, the director and founder of Tiempo de Arte, Merche Zubiaga, has highlighted public-private collaboration as an opportunity for “shared views”, in this case, between Puertos del Estado, Puerto de Santander, Santander City Council and Government of Cantabria, as well as the companies Cantabria Labs and Grupo GOF, together with the cultural managers, Centro Botín and Tiempo de Arte.
Throughout these two years of work, the academic director of Cinematography Studies at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), Lucía Tello Díaz, has monitored the process to carry out the documentary ‘ALMA. An artistic journey with Boa Mistura’where he recovers the history of “transformation of a place and its community.”
Along these lines, the managing director of the Thyssen-Bornaza National Museum, Evalio Acevedo, has assured that art is “a vital energy that serves to transform people and societies”, while considering that it is “a projection” of the day-to-day environment and its challenges.
In the same way, the general director of Círculo de Bellas Artes Madrid, Valerio Rocco, has insisted on the “transformative” power of artand has defended that beyond representing society, it can “introduce new worlds”, as stated at the IV Art Time Conference 2025, held after the presentation.