Marta VALLEJO HERRANDO

Born and raised in the industrial town of Cornellà, Marta Vallejo has always had a natural inclination to peripheries. Following a degree on Political Sciences in the Pompeu Fabra University, she found her space in the margins of social sciences engaging on a major on Compared Literature and Cultural Studies in the University of Barcelona.
While studying at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Toulouse, she started a long-lasting and fruitful experience of artistic activism in the Balkans as a member of the organizing committee of the Mostarski Interculturalni Festival. A European networking initiative at the origins of the OKC Abrasevic, an independent art space in Mostar created in 2003.

Throughout this process she completed her academic training with masters on Economics of development in the University of Barcelona and Cultural management in the Pompeu Fabra University. Since then, she has been committed to a professional path that combine cultural management, artistic interventions and political impact.

Thus she has been living in Dakar for three years, working as an analyst for the culture and development programme of the Spanish Cooperation Agency in Senegal and as a curator and project manager at the multimedia art centre Kër Thiossane. She’s currently based in Alexandria, Egypt, working as a programme officer for the Anna Lindh Foundation.

As founding member of the art collective La Companyía, she’s developing several projects focusing in grass-roots collective creation, mobilizing an informal network of artists, activists, researchers, neighbors and friends in constant growth. One of the latest examples of which is resistance(((s)))ound, a collaborative sound art exhibition involving art collectives from Dakar, Alexandria, Madrid, Brussels and Casablanca.

And meanwhile, she keeps track of her experiences through her writings in the Nativa magazine and in her virtual corners for literary and visual researches.