Pablo Santacana López

Born 1991 in Madrid/Spain.

Pablo Santacana López is an artist, researcher, and architectural designer based in Berlin/Germany. His transdisciplinary work examines how histories are staged, circulated, and embodied, and reveals the role of collective imagination in the construction of our social environments. Working through publications, installations, audio projects, and film, he researches the dispositives and protocols that shape our understanding of territory, exploring spatial politics, historical mimicry, and embodied memory.

He trained in architecture at ETSAM UPM in Madrid/Spain, completing a combined BA and MA (2009–2016), followed by an MA at UdK Berlin (2018–2021). He completed his PhD at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Weimar/Germany, where his research project Performing Softcore Historicity: Puy du Fou and the Immersive Spatialization of History (2021–2024) examined how the Puy du Fou theme park turns identitarian politics into an immersive spatial experience. He was also an associate researcher at FH Erfurt, Erfurt/Germany, and has lectured at UdK Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Estonian Academy of Arts. From 2027, he will work as a postdoctoral researcher at FAU USP in São Paulo/Brazil.

Santacana López is editor-in-chief of Meseta Books and cofounder of the Spanish art collective Vendedores de Humo. He is also a member of the Berlin-based platform decolonizeM21 and the collective Contextual Research (Co-Re) at Haus der Statistik, Berlin/Germany.

His recent projects include EA1EG, an exhibition and book project at the Provincial Archive of Ávila, Ávila/Spain; a sound and audio installation for the Gründerzeit Museum in Berlin/Germany (2021–2022); Esfera Piedra Polígono, a book and exhibition at Sala de Arte Injuve in Madrid/Spain; and Becoming Anti-Monuments, a workshop and exhibition at the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum in Berlin/Germany (2022). His work has been shown or presented at the São Paulo Architecture Biennale, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Oslo Architecture Triennial, Matadero Madrid, Campo Adentro (Uruguay), and Savvy Contemporary Berlin. He has also worked with Berlin institutions and spaces, including Savvy Contemporary, Gropius Bau, nGbK, and Acud Macht Neu. As a writer, he has contributed to academic and trade publications such as Arch+, Texte zur Kunst, Contemporary&, and Arts of the Working Class.