Cristina Morales is a Barcelona-born, London-based public anthropologist and cultural producer. She works internationally as a researcher, writer, educator, curator, and artist, bridging critical thought and socially engaged art to foster radical imagination and embodied practice. Exploring how the personal and the social shape each other through a holistic approach, her work brings together the legacies of critical human sciences, radical cultural movements, and ancestral cosmologies. Notably, these include decoloniality, critical psychology and pedagogy, and radical social movements as well as cultural traditions that redefine the notions of both the artist and art.
Growing up as the grandchild of Andalusian rural migrants and part of the first generation after Spain’s fascist dictatorship following the Spanish Civil War, Cristina became the first in her family to access higher education. Seeking to understand the complexity around her, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Social & Cultural Anthropology from the University of Barcelona, while also undertaking a five-year journey of self-inquiry through depth psychology. This experience, alongside her lived intersectional oppression, was pivotal in the ongoing development of her personal and political consciousness, laying the foundation for her life’s work. At a time when social practice art degrees were not available in Spain, already active as an entrepreneur in this niche, she specialised in Cultural Management with a Master’s from the Open University of Catalonia. After completing her studies, she moved to London to continue pursuing this call.
Throughout her career, Cristina has challenged dominant narratives, built alternative and accessible cultural spaces as well as networks, and created or supported collective practices ranging from politically engaged and community-based art to experimental education and cultural interventions in public space. Her work spans international freelance projects alongside roles within public, private, and non-profit organisations, receiving coverage in The Guardian, BBC News, Essence, and True Africa. Employers and collaborations include Black Cultural Archives (London), Disability Arts Online (UK), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Extinction Rebellion (London), Southbank Centre (London), Quai Branly Museum (Paris), Plurality University Network (Paris), Afropunk (Paris), Notting Hill Carnival (London), Antiuniversity Now (London), Brighton Pride (Brighton), Utopian Studies Society (Europe), and the Center for Artistic Activism (New York).
Currently, she is focusing on freelance research, writing, and experimental workshops with interests evolving towards reenchantment topics. Her publications are featured in national, international, and specialist media, including Decolonial Thoughts (London), Humanities, Arts & Society (Paris), Gods & Radicals Press (Seattle), El Mundo (Madrid), and Radio Africa (Barcelona). She occasionally speaks for organisations like the Social Art Network (UK) and has been invited to lecture at institutions such as ABK Stuttgart University of Art & Design (Germany). In 2021, she was awarded an artist fellowship at Design Science Studio by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (San Francisco), as part of their decade-long movement The Regenaissance, a global confluence of creators shaping regenerative futures.
At the heart of Cristina’s lifework is a passion for natural and cultural biodiversity. Her core motivation, beyond her own story, is a profound respect for life and expansive consciousness as a determinant of experience in its full potential. This translates into a holistic lens on the mystery of the self and the world, our creativity and liberating practices, and our ability to live in a state of becoming. This work and site serve as a laboratory and archive of communal experiences and resources, co-shaping alternative imaginaries and social poetics in the building of another present and future.
Featured image: Portrait by Williamz Omope. Anti-flag by Totem Taboo. London, 2017.
CRISTINA MORALES 