Entertainment · Books & Arts · 3 hrs ago
Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González win €50,000 art prize
Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González won the €50,000 Fundación Macba prize for their exhibition *Espejo del mundo*.
The show, presented at the Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres, explores the lives and memories of people held at a psychiatric hospital in Bétera and a former prison in Cáceres.
Their research at the Bétera hospital began in 2017 and included looking for traces left behind in its buildings.
The artists also worked at the old Cáceres prison, where thousands of people were imprisoned.
The exhibition uses photographs, videos, documents and wall fragments to bring attention to places and histories often left out of public memory.
The jury praised the project’s approach to memory and human rights.
The exhibition had closed a week before the prize was announced.
Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González have won the Fundación Macba Prize, which carries an award of €50,000.
The prize recognises their exhibition Espejo del mundo, about the memories of people interned at a psychiatric hospital in Bétera and prisoners at Cáceres’s Old Prison.
Their research began in 2017 at the former Padre Jofré Psychiatric Hospital in Bétera.
The exhibition used photographs, videos, documents and wall fragments to explore exclusion, collective memory and social heritage.
The prize is in its second edition, with €80,000 in total awards.
- Who
- Valencian artists Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González.
- What
- They won the Fundación Macba Prize, worth €50,000, for their exhibition Espejo del mundo.
- When
- The article was published on 9 November 2026.
- Where
- The exhibition was presented at the Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres and focused on sites in Bétera and Cáceres.
- Why
- The jury praised the work’s conceptual and methodological value and its approach to memory and human rights.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Gómez and González began their research at the former Padre Jofré Psychiatric Hospital in Bétera.
The exhibition had closed.
El País reported that Gómez and González had won the Fundación Macba Prize.
- Prize
- Fundación Macba Prize
- Award for the winners
- €50,000
- Exhibition
- Espejo del mundo
- Research began
- 2017
- Total prize fund in second edition
- €80,000
What people are saying
overwhelmed
largest and most complete work
it has been a seven-year effort to see beyond the wall of the psychiatric hospital
the conceptual and methodological value of the work, as well as the singularity of a proposal that transforms research on memory and human rights into a rigorous, innovative and interdisciplinary artistic practice