Collective residencies / Ageing (residence online) / Olot
LORENA PAZ LÓPEZ
From Monday, 18 January 2021 to Friday, 29 January 2021
Bio
Lorena Paz López (BA Spanish; MA Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Santiago de Compostela) is a PhD Candidate in the Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures department at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research interests revolve around the Spanish Republican exile from a gender perspective. In her doctoral thesis she studies the work carried out by Clara Campoamor, María Teresa León and María Martínez Sierra during the years of their exile in Buenos Aires, with special emphasis on the way they interact with the culture market and brought feminist issues to mass media outlets, such as women's magazines and radio broadcasts.
Project
During my stay at the Faber residency I will focus on the way María Martínez Sierra extensively discussed the connection between aging, work and exile during her years in Buenos Aires, where she arrived when she was 75 years old as exile writer. I will explore her multiple contributions to the issue of aging during her stay in Argentina, specially in popular magazines and radio broadcast. I will investigate how, work at old age is for Martínez Sierra not only a matter of economic survival, but also a way avoid isolation, to remain active through intellectual work, and to rethink feminism from the perspective of aging.
When one thinks of yet another Zoom meeting, one inevitably feels a certain laziness and weariness, no matter how interesting the content of the meeting is. Part of me was reluctant to participate in the residency online, but the topic interested me so much that I decided to give it a try. I now recognise that in none of the sessions of the "Ageing" residency did I open Zoom with reluctance. The atmosphere of work and reflection that was created was so good from the first moment, so far removed from the usual academic hostility that, although the format was not ideal, it was well worth it. For me, the seed of the good atmosphere came from the organisers of the meeting, Pepa and Gavina, together with Francesc (Faberllull’s director), who gave us such a warm and honest reception from minute one that we had no choice but to try to live up to it. I have been very lucky with my classmates, who were always willing to ask questions and help, even if their field of study was the opposite of mine. I have learned, I have thought together and I have felt comfortable. I couldn't ask for more. Thank you.