He arrived in Girona during the height of the Spanish Transition, when the houses that are now picturesque along the Onyar River were gray and the city's "dump." Now, the city that welcomed him has just presented him with the most extensive exhibition ever held in the municipality: eight cultural venues are displaying more than 600 of his works, divided by theme. Vicente Huedo (Socuéllamos, Ciudad Real, 1955) is more than a painter: he is also a teacher of painters. Self-taught, and with a natural talent for drawing since childhood, he has taught at the La Mercè Cultural Center for 35 years. "Girona has given me back much more than I have given it," he explains enthusiastically about the exhibition. "It's a luxury in life to feel recognized and loved. After that, I don't think anything will change: it's food for thought, and I will continue creating my own work with the peace of mind of seeing my efforts rewarded."

Chije Kang is an architect and cinematographer from Figueres with a distinguished international career. Born in Figueres in the 1990s to a Korean family, when Asian immigration was virtually nonexistent in the Empordà region, she has forged a talented and passionate creative path, working in both photography and filmmaking. After training in Barcelona, ​​she now lives in New York, where she combines prestigious architectural commissions, primarily focused on interior design, with audiovisual projects in independent film, advertising, and contemporary art. Two years ago, she participated in the film The room next door by Pedro AlmodóvarAs assistant to Barcelona-based cinematographer Edu Grau, with whom she won the Goya Award in 2025, Kang, perfectly integrated into the artistic and social bustle of New York City, maintains strong ties to Figueres and its surroundings, where her family and the Empordà landscape continue to inspire her in every project.

In Portbou, the last town on the Costa Brava before crossing the border into Northern Catalonia, stands out one of the most unique and stimulating fine dining experiences in the Girona region. It's Voramar, a small, meticulously maintained restaurant by the sea, entirely managed by the Jamàs i Garbí family. which in 2025 earned its first Michelin starA recognition that They have renewed their contracts for 2026 this week.consolidating their position at the forefront of the Catalan gourmet scene. For all these reasons, they have been one of the winners of the new ARA Girona awards, named the 25 people from Girona who have scored in 2025, Delivered on November 12th.

Hidden behind Girona's City Hall, through a narrow passageway, stands the city's majestic Municipal Theatre. Locals consider it perfectly normal to access it through a dead-end alley next to a large bicycle parking area. But for those who have never been, it will surely be difficult to find. You have to cross the entire City Hall courtyard to reach the beautiful staircase that leads to the auditorium. This challenging entrance, not advertised from any point, embodies the long-standing inertia of a public theatre that Elena Carmona (Córdoba, 1981) has been working tirelessly for the past four years to open up beyond the city center. "We are a theatre open to the public and its surroundings, committed to contemporary creation," she explains passionately. "We don't want to be a closed space, but rather a porous one, a place for direct listening." Originally from Córdoba and a journalism graduate, Carmona moved to Barcelona two decades ago, where she trained and specialized in the management and direction of cultural institutions. After ten years as the artistic coordinator of El Graner, the creative hub managed by the Mercat de les Flors, the pandemic led her to fall in love with the Alt Empordà region. It was in this context that the first public competition was launched to direct the Girona Municipal Theatre after years of being managed by city council staff. She had a very clear mission: to open the theatre to the city and democratize culture. And Carmona's project, with its clear commitment to reaching out to neighborhoods and championing the arts, won. "I arrived wearing a mask. I knew Girona mainly from Temporada Alta," she recalls. "But sometimes I think I was very naive because I didn't really know the people of Girona." The Escénit

Carmona's first press conference was in the summer of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, to present a series that marked his initial declaration of intent: Escénit. What for years had been an open-air circus program confined to picturesque spots in the Barri Vell (Old Quarter) suddenly expanded throughout the city—including the humblest neighborhoods—with free, high-quality performing arts shows by companies from all over Europe. For example, residents of the Central Park area, near the train station, enjoyed a performance by the Belgian duo Ludo and Arsène. parkour through the main light structures or balconies in the area. "The fact of coming from outside with a fresh perspective, few prejudices, and a clear idea of the project backed by winning the City Council competition, allowed me to take a risk and launch a project that someone from here wouldn't have dared to attempt," he explains.

]]>

He's capable of making young and old laugh just with his gestures, without words. He plays a dog, as in his last show. Woof, which this Saturday and Sunday at 7 pm can be seen at the Port Olímpic in Barcelona during the Fiestas de la Mercè, or open and close doors, one of the traits for which he is best known. "I've been doing serious humor from Girona to the world for 20 years," he claims. He is Pere Hosta (Girona, 1975), clown, not to call him a clown, which is exactly the same but without the negative connotation we are used to giving him. "It's often said as a put-down: 'Don't be such a clown!'" he reflects. "But being a clown is about being transparent, sincere; reaching people through humor."

]]>

He has just arrived in the Llémena Valley, between the Gironès and La Garrotxa mountains, after a long journey from Germany by van. He hasn't even parked for ten minutes. It's the journey he makes accompanied by two bicycles and his dog Omali—which in Swahili means "treasure" or "something valuable"—every time he seeks a few days of rest between weeks of work travel. "Llémena is my refuge between wars," he admits. This year he has been to Lebanon, Syria, Acapulco (Mexico), and will soon return to Mosul (Iraq). He barely remembers it; he has to check his phone to list it all. "And 2025 has been peaceful compared to before," he says.

]]>

With more than a million followers on social media, half a million of them on Instagram alone, Olot native Aniol Güell (Olot, 1997) has become a great ambassador for Mexican cuisine in just three years. And not just for the Catalan public, but his success has been, in his own words, being "a Spaniard who makes videos of Mexican food for Mexicans." Specifically, his specialty is tacos and he is known by the nickname @tacotios. In 2022, she moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, to study the final year of her degree in physical activity and sports sciences at the Euses de Salt University. It was a way to "escape" and, at the same time, "find herself" after the premature death of her father when she was 18. "Leaving only makes you grow," she reflects. "Since Olot, I always thought that I wanted to be like the people who leave. I needed my purpose in life."

]]>

He has more than three million followers on YouTube and half a million on Instagram. YouTuber Robert PG. If you're over 35 and you've run into him on the street, you probably won't recognize him. But if he shows up in a school playground, he won't be able to escape the photo requests—I can confirm it. He's Koko Dembélé Coulibaly, better known on social media as Koko DC, and although he was born in Amer in 1994—"Puigdemont's village," as he explains with a broad smile—he considers himself a Girona native through and through. From the age of four, he grew up in the Can Gibert del Pla neighborhood with his eight siblings from two different mothers and a father who traveled back and forth to Mali. He studied at Maristes Girona, was recruited to play soccer for Germans Sàbat, loves running around the Devesa River, and if there's one place you'll find him partying, it's in the Plaza Independencia area.

]]>

Nestled in the shelter of the Albera massif, a gently rolling area at the foot of the Mediterranean Pyrenees, lies the 8.5-hectare Mas Flaquer de Cantallops estate, dating back to the 18th century. Before the walls were erected, the century-old plane tree that shades actor and perfumer Ernesto Collado (Barcelona, ​​1974) and me as we chatted already stood by the Torrelles stream. It's listed as one of the four oldest in Spain, with 400 years of history. I could describe its bark, its majesty, its height, how one of the large fallen branches has been converted into a table... But for Collado, this plane tree is yet another example of the enormous biodiversity this estate harbors, making it unique for the new project that has turned it upside down. As I interview him, he explains how the scent of wild garlic, moonflower, and water mint reaches him. A decade ago, it would have been impossible. From one day to the next, he lost his sense of smell.

]]>

For ten years, journalist and professor Mar Camps (Palamós, 1991) said she would never return to the village. "Celrà was a place that had been given to me; I hadn't built anything," she reflects. "I didn't imagine Celrà as my place." Unable to find a place to settle, she fled to Calabria, at the tip of Italy, "a land of passage, of people who emigrate, of people who arrive by boat, of people who don't quite fit in anywhere." That experience, written slowly over almost five years in the form of a diary, has become her first novel: Without hands on the deep path. An autobiographical novel where the protagonist, Julia, is also approaching thirty and "envies people who don't doubt, who are clear about where they want to go, who have found their place."

]]>

It's unusual for a book presentation in Girona to be packed to the rafters—crosses would be made with a maximum of five people—despite being held in an auditorium. It's even more unusual for dozens of people to gather outside. But it's also unusual for a former village high school principal, teacher, art critic, cultural manager, and doctor in art history for a thesis on fantasy art to be the Spanish government's sub-delegate in Girona and present a book about a Norwegian explorer. Pere Parramon (Girona, 1977) has just published Fridtjof Nansen. Portraits, prints (SD Edicions), a short essay with a strong poetic vocation that explores, through various images and drawings of this 1922 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the universal vocation of this figure. A book born from Parramon's "love affair" with this "man of the past." universalisBut, far from wanting to "idealize" or "glorify" Fridtjof Nansen (Norway, 1860-1930), what he seeks above all is to present him as a "human being" to learn from his legacy.

]]>

Outside the walls of Girona, next to the old quarries, lies the studio of one of the great exponents of contemporary Catalan art. Enric Ansesa (Girona, 1945) has been cultivating his own pictorial language for more than five decades, full of symbols, on all the colors of black. And he remains fully active, without delegating any of his production, even if it's just the hammering of hundreds of small needles. His chaotic and bright workshop, with magnificent views of the city, is a vantage point from which one can follow everything from Canigó to Montseny. "A broad-spectrum antibiotic," as he himself defines it. But not enough medicine to maintain the connection with the city where he was born. "I've always wanted to work in Girona, for convenience and because it's a good place to live," he explains. "But for the past few years, I've had little connection to Girona, by choice."

]]>