Julia Montilla is the winner of the 11th edition of the Video Creation Award

The Barcelona-based artist Julia Montilla is the winner of the 11th Edition of the Video Creation Award, a co-production of a video art project promoted by the Territorial Centers of Visual Arts in Catalonia*, Santa Mònica, the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and Loop Barcelona.

The Territorial Centers of the Public System of Visual Arts Facilities in Catalonia are: ACVic Centre for Contemporary Arts, Vic; Bòlit, Centre for Contemporary Art, Girona; Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona; M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani; Mèdol – Centre for Contemporary Arts of Tarragona; Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida; Lo Pati Art Centre – Terres de l’Ebre, Amposta; and Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

The project is titled Strawberry Fields and will premiere as part of Loop Festival 2025.

The winning project by Julia Montilla  is based on the idea that contemporary history is written from an urban-centric perspective, one that positions us on the privileged side in contrast to rural life. The city defines the world, it describes it, interprets it, and determines whether what lies beyond it exists or not. And yet, the countryside is continually rediscovered.

Recent protests in the agricultural sector revealed that it is largely dominated by big agribusinesses, which cause environmental harm, impoverish the remaining small-scale farmers, and exploit both local and migrant workers. As a result, seasonal laborers were excluded from the sustained public discourse and demands.

Strawberry Fields specifically explores the figure of seasonal women workers and the issues arising from intensive agriculture, thereby establishing a continuity between our colonial past and the current extractivist regime. The film, situated between visual essay, documentary, and experimental cinema practices, references through its title the Beatles’ song of the same name. That song, a psychedelic and lysergic narrative written in Almería, reflects on the perception of reality, suggesting that life becomes easier when we close our eyes to what surrounds us. Yet, seeing is a political act. When we look, we affect what we see and, at the same time, are affected by what is seen. This allusion, therefore, comments on both the voluntary act of elusion and the institutionalized gaze upon the world—two positions that help explain the invisibility of these female laborers. What factors have contributed to the absence of visual representations of these workers, or how dominant culture has constructed their image, are some of the questions the audiovisual project seeks to address.

Julia Montilla (Barcelona, 1970) graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona (UB), where she is currently an associate professor and doctoral candidate. She is a member of the research project I+D+I Rhythms of Women’s Work in the History of Art and Visual Culture (Spain, 1936–2022). Montilla works with a wide range of media to analyze the role of images and the visual construction of everyday life. Over the past decade, she has focused her work on themes such as psychological distress, religious ecstasy, labor precarity, and social exclusion.

Since the late 1990s, her work has been exhibited at venues such as La Capella, Espai 13 at the Joan Miró Foundation (Barcelona), Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), among others. She has received grants from institutions such as MoMA, Fundación Botín, Fundación la Caixa, and the Barcelona Institute of Culture. Montilla was also a board member of the Hangar Foundation, worked with the experimental audiovisual platform Hamaca, and co-founded the bookstore La Caníbal.