Tania
Ugena Candel

PhD in Education Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. Master in Art Therapy and Art Education for Social Inclusion. Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Diploma in Social Education. Doctor contracted professor accredited by ANECA. Art therapist accredited by FEAPA. Chartered Social Educator nº213 (CPEESM). Member of the Association of Dance Professionals CAM. The motor that drives my activity in art, teaching, and research is the desire to raise awareness of art's potential as an agent of social change. My diverse study of the performance arts includes courses in Ballet, Spanish Classical, and Flamenco dance at Madrid's Amor de Dios Dance Academy, as well as in various other styles of dance, theatre, and circus arts. This performing arts training has provided me with a rich background in the creative process that has informed and enriched my professional career, beginning in 2006, as a social worker and as an art therapist with diverse groups of disadvantaged or special-needs individuals such as women, children, and adolescents, addicts, the elderly (including those with cognitive decline), or immigrants and refugees. These first projects formed the substance of the doctoral thesis Dance as Artform: Therapeutic, Educational, and Social Applications which I defended in 2014, and for which I was awarded superior marks and earned the distinction cum laude. That same year I trademarked my brand Girasol: Arteterapia en Movimiento (Sunflower: Art-Therapy in Motion) in order to bring together various projects informed by art therapy and which provide a space for new sensations and experience. Between 2017 and 2018, I was awarded two research grants to work as an art therapist at the Youth Centre of the independent organization Madrid Salud. As it was the first time that a Spanish public entity had sought and hired such a therapist, my participation at Madrid Salud represented a great step forward for the recognition and legitimization of art therapy. The research was situated within the municipal program Madrid Ciudad de los Cuidados (Madrid - City of the Cared For) and had as its goal to devise strategies for the introduction of art therapy into the community and into the approach of multi-disciplinary teams at CMSc. Since 2017 I have worked as a mediator within the Prado Inclusivo program under the El Prado National Museum's Office of Education. There I have developed tools to foster better interaction between institutions, associations and community centres, as well as to put art in the context of the different social realities experienced by people of functional diversity (those with a cognitive or physical disability) as in El amor a escena (Love of the Stage), Formando Mediadores (The Education of Mediators), Esferas de Acción (Action Spheres), Sui Géneris: Arte, Publicidad y Estereotipos (Sui Géneris: Art, Advertising, and Stereotypes) and Ecosistema Prado (Prado Ecosystem), or female prisoners in Las Hilanderas (The Spinners), and adolescent students in D_SEA. Diversidad, Sexualidades, Arte (D_SEA. Diversity, Sexuality, and Art). As of 2018 I have been working as professor at the Nebrija University and at the Nebrija Institute of Professional Skills (Degree in Performing Arts, Degree in Fine Arts and Master in Teaching Methodologies). I am passionate about teaching as it affords me the opportunity to develop students' knowledge and skill through innovative and dynamic methodologies that encourage two innovation projects: Aula Expandida Universidad-Museos (Expanded Clasroom: University-Museums) and Cartografías (Cartographies). Many of these experiences have been presented to the scientific and academic communities at conferences, symposiums, and various publications.