Works and projects receiving City of Barcelona awards contribute to cultural development and are part of the fabric of society.

This year’s winners are:

Literature, translation and essays

The award in the Catalan literature category goes to El meu amic, by Esteve Miralles, published by Angle Editorial. The book connects a personal story with a social and political portrait of Catalonia over recent decades. The award in the category for translation into Catalan goes to Josefina Caball, for the translation of El color Porpra, by Alice Walker. The work Lo demás es aire earned Juan Gómez Bárcena the award for Spanish literature.

As for the City of Barcelona Agustí Duran i Sanpere award for essays, humanities and Barcelona history, this went to the work El teatre de Shakespeare en el seu context, by Jordi Coca, published by Edicions de 1984 and Edicions Institut del Teatre.

Education, architecture and design and popular and community culture

The Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez, in Sant Martí de Provençals, is an intimate and close space which invites people to rethink the future of libraries. The design has earned Elena Orte and Guillermo Sevillano from the Suma Arquitectura studio the award for architectures, urban planning and design.

The Associació Punt de Referència takes the award in the education category for its “Referents” project, the capacity to generate ties and spaces for emotional, linguistic and social security with youngsters formerly in foster care, through citizen commitment  and educational support.

The City of Barcelona award for popular and community culture is for EN5D, by the traditional dance group Esbart Ciutat Comtal, a project which combats sterotypes and gender roles in choreographic and wardrobe design. In the same category, the jury gives a special mention to the celebration calendar for 2022 by the Grup Interreligiós del Raval, which gives visibility to the neighbourhood’s cultural and religious diversity.

Science and technology

The City of Barcelona award for environmental and Earth sciences goes to the researchers Pedro Cermeño and Carmen García-Comas from the Institut de Ciències del Mar CSIC, for the work Post-extinction recovery of the Phanerozoic oceans and biodiversity hotspots. The project offers a change of paradigm in the knowledge of Evolution and the recovery of marine biodiversity following the extinctions of the last 500 million years.

Marta Villegas, the main researcher for the group Life Sciencies – Text Mining del Barcelona Supercomputing Center, takes the award for experimental sciences and technology for the construction and development of models for the processing of natural language for Catalan and Spanish AINA and MarIA; a decisive step in the preservation of linguistic heritage for both languages in the internet.

The work Oocytes maintain ROS-free mitocondrial metabolism by suppressing complex I, published in Nature magazine, earns Dr Elvan Böke the award in the life sciences category.

Audiovisuals, digital culture and visual arts

This is the first time that a videogame has won the City of Barcelona award for audiovisuals and digital culture. The project in question is Endling – Extinction is Forever, a sensitive narrative centring on climate change, ecologism and care work.

The project FOC, promoted by Cordoba, Jokko Collective and Cchhoorroo, took the award in the visual arts category as a space where anti-racist, queer and intergenerational thought and action converge.

Music and performing arts

The jury gave the award in the performing arts category to the company Los Galindos, for MDR – Mort de riure, a radical and imaginative circus show in favour of streets and other unconventional spaces and scenarios which need to be regained.

Finally, Tarta Relena, Cocanha and Los Sara Fontán took the City of Barcelona award for music for the project 4132314, presented at the Grec festival. In addition, the awards gala featured a performance by Marta Torrella and Helena Ros from the group Tarta Relena.