Cristina Morales is a Barcelona-born, London-based public anthropologist and cultural producer. Working internationally as a researcher, writer, educator, curator, and artist, she bridges critical thought and socially engaged art to foster radical imagination and practice. Weaving 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 decoloniality, critical psychology and pedagogy, and radical cultural traditions as well as philosophies 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. Already active as an entrepreneur when social practice art degrees were not yet available in Spain, she specialised in Cultural Management with a Master’s from the Open University of Catalonia before moving 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 curated 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 the Black Cultural Archives, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Extinction Rebellion, Southbank Centre, Notting Hill Carnival, and Antiuniversity Now in London. Her broader national and international portfolio includes Brighton Pride and Disability Arts Online across the UK; the Quai Branly Museum, the Plurality University Network, and Afropunk in Paris; the Utopian Studies Society in Europe; and the Center for Artistic Activism in New York.
Currently, she is focusing on freelance research, writing, and the design and facilitation of experimental workshops with interests evolving towards topics of reenchantment. Her writing is published in international media such as Decolonial Thoughts (London), Humanities, Arts & Society (Paris), and El Mundo (Madrid). She is invited to speak for organisations like the Social Art Network (UK) and to lecture at institutions such as the ABK Stuttgart University of Art & Design (Germany). In 2021, she was awarded an artist fellowship at the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Design Science Studio (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 