AVE DOÑANA II
2025-2026
META Miami presents:
AVE Doñana II
artistic residencies, exhibitions, educational activities, art and science.
The AVE Doñana Project, an international platform uniting art, science, and environmental conservation, inaugurates its 2025–2026 season with an ambitious new program of exhibitions, talks, and educational initiatives.
The AVE Doñana Project traces its origins to the historic connection between the Doñana Biological Reserve in Spain and Hato El Frío in Venezuela, where, during the 1970s, scientists such as Javier Castroviejo and Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente carried out pioneering research on biodiversity.
Decades later, this legacy inspired Milagros Maldonado, president of META Miami, to reimagine that spirit of collaboration between art and science, transforming it into a 21st-century platform for ecological awareness and cultural exchange.
Building on the success of its 2024 inaugural edition—which attracted more than 17,000 visitors—the project’s new season reaffirms its commitment to dialogue, education, and environmental conservation through the transformative power of art.
The Project
Conceived over a three-year period, the project has been developed in close collaboration with the Doñana Biological Station (CSIC) and the Foundation for Biodiversity (MITECO). Its curatorial vision centers on an artist-in-residence program within the Doñana Reserve, offering a contemporary artist the opportunity to experience firsthand the region’s extraordinary biodiversity and ecosystems. The residency encourages the artist to translate this immersive encounter into a creative process that both interprets and communicates Doñana’s essence within the broader international art context.
Since its inception, the AVE Doñana Project has established itself as a pioneering platform at the intersection of art, science, and environmental consciousness. Through a dynamic combination of artist residencies, scientific collaboration, and cultural dialogue, the project fosters innovative ways to perceive and protect the natural world.
The 2025–2026 program further expands this mission through an ambitious series of exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, and educational initiatives, underscoring the deep interconnections between artistic practice, scientific inquiry, and ecological reflection.
The exhibitions of the project:
Adrián Pujol
Genius Loci, Doñana a la intemperie
This season, the project kicks off with the exhibition Genius Loci: Doñana a la Intemperie by Adrián Pujol, running from October 29, 2025, to March 19, 2026, at the Fundación Biodiversidad (MITECO), located at Patio de Banderas 16, Seville. The show features fourteen works—eight paintings and six watercolors—created during a residency in Doñana National Park, where the artist collaborated with scientists from the Doñana Biological Station–CSIC.
Adrián Pujol working at the site.
“A lot is happening. Truly, a lot — on many levels. That’s how it always is in Doñana. It rains, and on the water of the Caño, thousands of circles appear. They form and fade endlessly, infinite. Adrián’s painting battles the elements. Rivers of rain run across it, like the channels that cut through the land around him. Doñana paints and erases it, gives and takes away.”
Noé Garrido
Adrián Pujol. El Alcornoque 206, 2025. Acrylic on canvas. 120 x 200 cm
Adrián Pujol (Palma, 1948) transforms painting into a form of environmental observation. Working directly in the open air in locations such as Martinazo, Santa Olalla, and Caño del Sopetón, Pujol exposes his canvases to the elements—wind, rain, and sunlight—allowing the natural forces of Doñana to participate in the painting process. As Pujol explains, “Painting in Doñana means accepting the intrusion of the unpredictable—the impossibility of control.” Art critic Joventino Reverte characterizes Pujol's work as “a moment where painting ceases to be mere representation and becomes an event: Doñana imposes its rhythm and transforms the painter’s gaze, revealing its true genius loci—the spirit of place.” Curators Milagros Maldonado and Henrique Faria highlight the project as “a profound encounter between creation and nature, where the landscape is not merely depicted but actively participates.”.
Adrián Pujol. La casa de Martinazo desde el zacallón de los caballos, 2025. Acrylic on canvas. 106 x 200 cm
The exhibitions of the project:
Carmen Laffón
Línea de Horizonte
The second exhibition of this year's project is Línea de Horizonte by Carmen Laffón, running from November 5, 2025, to March 19, 2026, at the Fundación Biodiversidad (MITECO), located at Patio de Banderas 16, Seville. The show features 21 works—5 oil paintings and 16 pastels— inspired by Doñana.
Carmen Laffón. Vista del Coto II. 2021. Gouache and charcoal on canvas. 110 x 200 cm
“Carmen Laffón dedicated much of her work to Doñana, viewed from her house in La Jara, on the edge of the old Corral de Merlín. Inspired by the simplicity of the horizon, the sky, and the land, she transformed that landscape into a laboratory of light and color. Her painting, minimalist and meditative, oscillates between panoramic grandeur and gestural restraint, exploring the nuances that the tides, the atmosphere, and the changing light imprint on the reserve.”
Daniel Bilbao
Carmen Laffón. Mar abierto III, 1992. Oil on canvas. 72,5 x 120 cm. Photo ©Claudio del Campo
Ultimately, the artist succeeds in turning the everyday landscape into an aesthetic experience, presenting a poetic and almost alchemical vision of Doñana, elevated in the horizon line she gazed at until the end of her life…
Daniel Bilbao
Carmen Laffón. El Coto desde Sanlúcar VI, 1989-92. Oil on canvas. 72,5 x 120 cm
AVE DOÑANA I
2024-2025
META Miami presents:
AVE Doñana
artistic residencies, exhibitions, educational activities, art and science.
This initiative seeks to disseminate, through art, the importance of the Doñana National Park within the framework of the 60th anniversary of the Doñana Biological Station and the 30 years since its declaration as a World Heritage Site.
The Project
Conceived over a three-year period, it has the collaboration of the Doñana Biological Station and the Foundation for Biodiversity. Its curatorial concept includes an artistic residency in the Doñana reserve for a contemporary artist, intending to allow him or her to experience first-hand the biodiversity and ecosystems of Doñana, subsequently communicating his or her experience through a creative process and disseminating it in the international artistic sphere.
Christian Vinck, Viendo la Respiración de la Tierra, 2024, 81 x 97cm
The exhibition includes outreach activities to integrate art and nature through discussions, film series, and educational activities that foster awareness, sensitivity, and knowledge about the importance of wetlands.
The first exhibition of the project:
Viaje de Ida y Vuelta,
Jorge Camacho+Christhian Vinck
The exhibition will show a dialogue between the two artists, who will speak about biodiversity, the route of migratory birds, and the wetland as an ecosystem. It will take place from October 17, 2024, to February 12, 2025, at Patio de Banderas 16, the headquarters of the Biodiversity Foundation in Seville, with the support of the Estación Biológica Doñana-CSIC.
Jorge Camacho, El desierto – Le desert Homenaje a Torgia. Año/ 1980. Técnica/ óleo sobre tela. Medidas/ 130 x 200 cm
The project arises from the decades-long work carried out by the Maldonado family to protect territories in Venezuela with the advice of the Doñana Biological Station—CSIC.
The Maldonado family's connection with the Doñana Biological Station dates back to 1973 when the first steps were taken to create the Biological Station in Venezuela at Hato el Frío. The El Frío Biological Station became a reference point for artists, including film, photography and painting professionals, who captured the beauty of the region's wild nature in their works, thus contributing to making this environment known to the world.
Eventos Programa de Extensión
Doñana y la literatura: Juan Villa, JJ Díaz Trillo y Jorge Molina.
Fundación Doñana 21. Sevilla, 7 de noviembre de 2024.
As part of the project AveDoñana, and alongside the current exhibition "Jorge Camacho y Christian Vinck: Viaje de ida y vuelta, los artistas con Doñana", this talk dwells on the relationship between Doñana and literature. Presented byBernabea Jimena Ramírez de Fundación Doñana 21, Consejería de Sostenibilidad y Medio Ambiente (Junta de Anadalucía). During the event, Juan Villa developed a brief survey of the 20 most important novels written about Doñana, some of which were written before the start of the twentieth century. Jorge Molina focused on poetry, reciting fragments as well as making reference to Jorge Camacho´s interest in poetry and the importance of metaphor as a form of expression. Finally, JJ Díaz Trillo shared with us his knowledge of documentary writing, including the pioneering work of the British ornitologist Guy Mountfort
Como parte del proyecto AveDoñana y en el marco de la exposición a "Jorge Camacho y Christian Vinck: Viaje de ida y vuelta, los artistas con Doñana", se llevó a cabo el conversatorio sobre Doñana y la literatura, presentado por Bernabea Jimena Ramírez de Fundación Doñana 21, Consejería de Sostenibilidad y Medio Ambiente (Junta de Anadalucía). El evento contó con la participación de Juan Villa quien centró su aportación sobre el género de ficción acerca de Doñana, haciendo un breve recorrido por las 20 novelas más importantes. Jorge Molina habló de poesía, recitó varios fragmentos e hizo referencia a Jorge Camacho y la importancia que él concedía a la poesía y la metáfora como método de expresión. JJ Díaz Trillo, por su parte, habló de documentales incluyendo el del ornitólogo inglés Guy Mountfort.
NO-DO. La Primavera en Doñana. Presenta: Eloy Revilla. Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC).
Sevilla, 22 de noviembre de 2024.
"NO-DO La Primavera en Doñana" produced by Álvaro Lion Depetre in 1970 was the first documentary of its kind, in seeking to present to the wider public scientific notions that reflected the richness of Doñana as a natural, biodiverse space. The event was presented by Mª del Carmen Rodríguez Oliva de Cine Club Vida and Eloy Revilla, current director of Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) a public research institute dedicated to the study of Ecology, Evolution and Conservation of Biodiversity. He offered the public an overview of the historical context of the documentary, and after the screening answered the questions and comments of those present.
El documental "NO-DO La Primavera en Doñana" creado a manos de Álvaro Lion Depetre en 1970, fue el primero de su clase que tiene como meta divulgar a un público amplio información de índole científica que refleje la riqueza de Doñana como espacio natural. El documental fue presentado por Mª del Carmen Rodríguez Oliva de Cine Club Vida, y Eloy Revilla, actual director de la Estación Biológica (EBD-CSIC), un instituto de investigación dedicado al estudio de la ecología, la evolución y la conservación de la biodiversidad. Eloy Revilla puso en contexto la historia del documental, y tras su visualización, respondió las dudas y preguntas del público.
Doñana y Hato El Frío. Presenta: Natalia Díaz. Con Javier Castroviejo Bolivar
Sevilla, 17 de enero de 2025
Within the framework of the exhibition "Jorge Camacho + Christian Vinck: Viaje de Ida y Vuelta, los artistas con Doñana," the discussion "Doñana y Hato El Frío" took place, featuring Javier Castroviejo Bolivar and presented by Natalia Díaz (META Miami).
Javier Castroviejo, a distinguished scientist and conservationist recognized internationally, shared his experience in creating the Hato El Frío Biological Station and its connection to the Doñana Reserve.
In this conversation, he addressed the destiny of nature reflected in Jorge Camacho's paintings about Doñana and El Frío, as well as his relationship with the painter, who, attracted by the region's birds, collaborated closely with Castroviejo in explorations in both Spain and Venezuela.
Castroviejo, awarded prizes such as the Príncipe de Asturias de la Concordia and the WWF Award for Conservation Merit, has been key in the protection of emblematic species and ecosystems, from Doñana National Park to the Venezuelan plains.
Doñana y la residencia artística con Christian Vinck, Celsi Señaris, Jose Manuel Vidal y Carmen Díaz.
Fundación Doñana 21. Sevilla, 5 de diciembre de 2024.
The Project AVE Doñana includes as part of its curatorial concept an artistic residence within the National Park, for a contemporary artist to experience biodiversity and ecosystems in Doñana. The artist Christian Vinck came to shed light on his experience as artist in residence this year. This stay led to the works currently exhibited and is yet another component of the project AVEDoñana, in order to give access to selected artists to the heart of Doñana. At the time, Vinck was guided by a group of scientific researchers, and three of these participated in the talk as well.
They discussed the differences, but also similarities, that scientific and artistic methods of research presented. Some of these photographs were translated to oil paintings, whereas others were discarded, and Vinck detailed to us this selection process.
El proyecto AVEDoñana, incluye dentro de su concepto curatorial una residencia artística en la reserva Doñana, para un artista contemporáneo, con el objetivo de que pueda experimentar de primera mano la biodiversidad y los ecosistemas de Doñana. El artista Christian Vinck relató su experiencia sobre la realización de su residencia artística en Doñana junto con los biólogos que lo acompañaron. La tertulia refirió sobre el diálogo entre la ciencia y el arte, las similitudes y diferencias de los métodos de investigación científicos con respecto a los artísticos. Vinck nos mostró su archivo fotográfico, a partir del cual nacieron varios de sus óleos, así como aquellas instantáneas que no llegaron a utilizarse.
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