>> The new academic program at the ADEMA University School brings its students closer to artistic professionalization.
>> The 2025/26 academic year program opens doors to emerging artists in Mallorca, Madrid, London, Gdansk, Chicago, New Mexico, and the Venice Biennale.
The ADEMA University School has presented its 2025/2026 annual program for the Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at the Barceló Foundation. This year, the program includes a national and international exhibition route connecting its students with important contemporary art venues in Madrid, London, Gdansk (Poland), Macerata (Italy), Chicago and New Mexico (USA), and the Venice Biennale, among others, as well as various venues in Mallorca.
The presentation took place this morning as part of the 2025 Art Night, one of the most important cultural events on Palma’s calendar. It marks the starting point for a course in which ADEMA reinforces its commitment to academic excellence, artistic practice as the cornerstone of its training, and the international reach of its students.
The Bachelor in Fine Arts reaches its fourth year this year, consolidating a qualitative leap forward. Since its inception, ADEMA Bellas Artes has championed an innovative model that combines research, production, and artistic dissemination through learning projects, with the conviction, in the words of the Head of Studies for the Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, Amparo Sard, “that art is learned by creating and confronting students with the same challenges they will face in their professional lives. During this upcoming academic year, this commitment is materialized in a schedule of exhibitions and projects in which we will connect our students from all courses with leading cultural institutions both on and off our island, in venues of utmost importance in the contemporary art scene.”
In this regard, Amparo Sard, Head of Studies for the Bachelor’ in Fine Arts at ADEMA, emphasized the importance of this program in students’ journey toward their professional future: “It is of utmost importance that our students not only acquire technical and theoretical knowledge, but also have the real opportunity to become professionals. The experience of exhibiting in galleries, museums, and spaces of leading institutions allows them a direct incursion into the world of contemporary art, its dynamics, and its demands. Our goal is for them to understand how the artistic ecosystem works from the inside and for their time at the university to be the beginning of their career.”
The program not only expands the students’ visibility, but also transforms the ADEMA University School “into a strategic platform for emerging talent on the islands, connecting local creation with institutions around the world. Today, our students present their work in Palma, but they’re already thinking about Madrid, London, or Venice. This program marks a turning point in their life experiences,” Amparo Sard asserted.
Art Night 2025: Four exhibitions with the ADEMA seal
The Night of Art, the central event in Palma’s cultural calendar, is the ideal setting to kick off the program. This year, ADEMA is participating with four proposals that showcase the diversity of languages and approaches within its academic community:
- LIVE WORK CREATE, thanks to the collaboration with Xavier Fiol Gallery. A group show, curated by Fernando Golvano, which brings together selected artists from the University Art Biennial – Art Week ADEMA 2025: Joan Bonnemaison, Gabrielle Curry, Óscar González, Elia Menang Setiadi, Adrià Miko, Rebeca Morey and Concha Vidal. The opening includes the performance “Birthland”, with Concha Vidal and Lorena Bonnin, accompanied by guitarist Mavic Bush, in the alternative space of the Garage Son Armadams. It will be inaugurated on September 17 at 6 pm.
- El Umbral, at the Barceló Foundation, curated by Mónica Galván, presents works by fourth-year students and opened today. This exhibition marks a special moment for ADEMA: the first graduating class to approach the end of their university studies. El Umbral is conceived as a living metaphor for the transition between the academic stage and the opening to the professional world. It is not a conventional retrospective, but rather an exercise in creative self-awareness in which students revisit works created over the past three years to discover in them the technical, conceptual, and experiential traces that shape their artistic identity. Each piece is understood as a visual diary, full of intuitions and discoveries, which bears witness to an emerging generation that is beginning to become aware of its place in the contemporary cultural ecosystem.
- Systole, in the Misericòrdia Cistern. (Videomapping). This is a light intervention by artist Óscar González (Palma, 2003), curated by Adonay Bermúdez and under the technical direction of Matías Togores. In the former Misericòrdia Cistern, a 19th-century space steeped in memory, small lights placed on the edges of pilasters and vaults turn on and off following the heartbeat of a swimmer. The piece does not seek to impose itself as a spectacle, but rather to generate a visual listening experience in which the building itself seems to breathe. With this gesture, González links the social history of the place—originally intended to welcome vulnerable, orphaned, and marginalized bodies—with the fragility of an individual pulse. The heartbeat, recorded in real time, becomes a shared pulse, a vital rhythm that unites strangers in the dimness of the cistern, transforming the architecture into resonance. In each flash, the paradox of the living is condensed: presence affirmed through interruption, a gesture that activates memory and shared attention. September 20th, starting at 6:00 p.m.
- Exhibition Experiences, at the Nivia Born Boutique Hotel, showcase the works of Álex Cueto and Luis Amador. The exhibition brings together two young perspectives that dialogue between the intimate and the natural. Luis Amador presents Si amanece (If It Dawns), a series of monotypes on paper in which Mediterranean plant motifs evoke the fragility and cyclical renewal of nature, each piece marked by chance and the unrepeatable process.
Meanwhile, Álex Cueto presents Mi Kiki Smith (My Kiki Smith), an acrylic and graphite on canvas that reinterprets the American artist’s work. Through female nudity, the piece transforms vulnerability into a gesture of power, tenderness, and connection with nature.
ADEMA Fine Arts, as a creative laboratory
Beyond Art Night, the program unfolds throughout the academic year in a network of local spaces that become authentic creative laboratories. The Barceló Foundation, the Museu de Mallorca, the Sala Sa Refinadora in Marratxí, the Museum of Footwear and Industry in Inca, along with municipal spaces in Calvià and Alaró, will host student projects in collaboration with guest artists and curators, as well as projects from the University Art Biennial – Art Week ADEMA 2025 traveling exhibition held in Palma.
These venues allow students to compare their work with diverse audiences and strengthen the link between ADEMA and Balearic society, consolidating the university as a driving force for cultural revitalization.
An unprecedented international agenda
The program also clearly connects the broad scope of ADEMA. Next October, fourth-year students will participate in the Estampa Fair in Madrid, one of the most influential forums for contemporary art in Spain. In November, they will travel to London to exhibit their work at the Cookhouse Gallery of the University of the Arts London, one of the most prestigious institutions in Europe, in collaboration with the Barceló Foundation.
In February, the University of Gdansk (Poland) will host a joint project on printmaking techniques, expanding European academic cooperation. In Italy, in the second semester of 2026, the collaboration with the University of Macerata will materialize into a publishing project that will allow students to explore new strategies for disseminating and publishing their works.
The international horizon is expanding toward the Americas with exchanges and exhibition projects developed in conjunction with Columbia College Chicago and in New Mexico (USA).
This entire itinerary will culminate in May 2026 with the participation of the Final Degree Projects in the official collateral events of the 2026 Venice Biennale, one of the most important contemporary art events on the international scene, which last year had more than one million visitors, as part of the official program of the European Cultural Centre (ECC).
An innovative academic model
The entire program is designed using the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, which transforms each exhibition into a comprehensive learning process. Students work across disciplines, integrating subjects, conducting research, producing works, and addressing the logistical, curatorial, and communication challenges involved in any exhibition project.
In this way, exhibitions are not just a final result, but rather part of the educational journey: authentic laboratories where students learn in direct contact with the professional reality of art.
Commitment to excellence and global projection
ADEMA’s annual agenda is rounded out by participation in initiatives such as Art Palma Brunch and Art Palma Summer, which strengthen ties between students and Mallorca’s cultural ecosystem, fostering dialogue with artists, gallery owners, curators, and collectors.
With this comprehensive program, ADEMA reaffirms its commitment to academic excellence, internationalization, and the creation of opportunities for young artists.