Equipo

VISUAL ARTS AND ILLNESS

Dr. Rebeca Pardo (PI – Principal Investigator): PhD in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in Anthropology and Ethnography (University of Barcelona), and a BA in Audiovisual Communication (University of Navarra). Pardo’s lines of research focus on the visual representation of illness, death and grief, particularly the ethical aspects and autobiography.

Pardo served as dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at UIC Barcelona. She has completed research stays at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, the MACBA Study Centre in Barcelona, Harvard University (US) and the University of Brighton (UK). She is the coordinator of the Research Group AINA (2021 SGR 01243) and was the principal investigator in the research project “Visibilising pain: visual narratives of illness and transmedia storytelling (2019-2022)” (MINECO / FEDER, ref: RTI2018-098181-A-I00) and has been joint PI of the project “Ethics of images of illness, death and grief in the time of Covid-19” (Víctor Grífols i Lucas Foundation grant in bioethics research). Previously, she has been PI on a number of other competitive projects. Her publications include a host of papers and book chapters and she has jointly edited a book with Montse Morcate entitled The Unveiled Image: Photographic practices in illness, death and grief. She has given many lectures and taken part in an array of national and international conferences. She has also carried out creative projects related to her lines of research, and her art works have been exhibited in Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Montse Morcate: Artist, researcher and lecturer in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. Morcate’s research focuses on the visual representation of death, illness and grief, and she takes a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses contemporary art, visual anthropology, the medical humanities, the digital humanities, photojournalism and historical memory. She has participated in a host of national and international conferences and seminars, and she has published many papers and book chapters on the subject (Routledge, Palgrave MacMillan, Mortality and EPI, to name but a few). Together with Rebeca Pardo, Morcate has jointly edited a book entitled The Unveiled Image: Photographic practices in illness, death and grief (Sans Soleil, 2019). Currently, she is a researcher on the project “Visibilising pain: visual narratives of illness and transmedia storytelling (2019-2022)” (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities) and she is joint PI on the project “Ethics of images of illness, death and grief in the time of Covid-19” (Grífols Foundation, 2020). In recent years, Morcate has pursued a number of post-doctoral research stays, including at the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University (New York), the Morbid Anatomy Museum (New York), the History of Science Department (CSIC) and the MACBA Study Centre (Barcelona). At the same time, Morcate has been developing and exhibiting her own art works, pursuing projects that reflect her field of research.

Dr. Susana de Noronha: Anthropologist, PhD in Sociology and researcher in the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Visiting associate lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Minho, Portugal. She is the sole author of three trailblazing research monographs on the representation of experiences of cancer in the visual and plastic arts.

Dr. Gorka López de Munáin: Art History & Visual Anthropology

COMMUNICATION

Dr. Irene Cambra Badii: PhD and BA in Psychology. For over ten years, Cambra was a researcher and instructor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has pursued post-doctoral training at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), where she is now a member of the Research Group in Health Sciences and teaches classes in Bioethics. Since 2019, she has been a researcher and lecturer with the Chair of Bioethics of the University of Vic–Central University of Catalonia. At present, her main research interests are studies in cinema and TV series and their use as didactic material in education innovation proposals.

Dr. Alfonso Freire Sánchez: PhD in Communication Sciences. Freire’s line of research focuses on the study of transmedia audiovisual narratives, character building and brand storytelling.

Dr. Jorge Martínez Lucena: Professor in mass media and communication at Abat Oliba CEU University. At present, Martínez is studying the social imaginaries of pain and mental illness in contemporary TV series.

Dr. Marta Piñol: Now a lecturer at the University of Barelona, Piñol has also taught classes in the History of Cinema, History and Theory of Photography, Documentary Cinema and Art Direction at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), UIC Barcelona and ESCAC. Piñol studied History of Art and has earned a master’s degree in Advanced Studies in the History of Art and a PhD from the University of Barcelona, obtaining an extraordinary prize in all three cases. Her thesis was the recipient of the Doctors’ Senate Award. She is the author of books entitled Ascetic Gazes: Poetics of alienation in modern and contemporary cinema (Shangrila Ediciones, 2022), Europe as Refuge: Filmic reflections of diverse Spanish exiles (1939-2016) (Edicions UB, 2020) and Con las maletas a otra parte: La emigración española hacia Europa en el cine (Sans Soleil Ediciones, 2020), which offers a look at film representations of Spanish emigration to Europe. She has also edited a host of works on visual culture, published a variety of papers, taken part in several conferences and translated a range of volumes. She has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès and has won a research grant from the Harry Ransom Centre (USA)

Dr. José Luis Terrón: Health Communication

Dr. Montserrat Vidal-Mestre: PhD in Communication Sciences. Vidal-Mestre’s line of research focuses on the study of the audiovisual component of communication based on an analysis of narratives, characters and brands.

VISUAL CULTURE

Dr. Patricia Prieto-Blanco: Photography and visual cultures.

CREATIVE WRITING

Dr. Carla Gracia Mercadé: PhD in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University in England and a lecturer in writing at the International University of Catalonia (UIC). In her career as a writer, Gracia has published three novels, a biography, two collections of essays and two short stories with major Spanish and international publishing houses. As part of the project entitled “Visibilising pain: visual narratives of illness and transmedia storytelling”, she has taken part in the second international seminar called “Visibilising it: brand storytelling and narratives of illness” and in the fourth international conference on cinema and comics, where she contributed the paper “Mental health problems as a justification for evil: the case of the Joker”, which will be published as a chapter of an indexed book. Gracia is also a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA), where she has given a lecture on autofiction and illness at the University of Oxford. Her lines of research are biofiction, transmedia narrative, the writing process and transnational writing.

COLLABORATORS

Dr Uschi Klein: Autism and Photography

Dr. Deborah Madden: Medical Humanities.