Raúl M Candela

Visual Residency Program | January 2026
Website

El río que sueña: Derivas místicas del Segura en el Valle del Ricote (The Dreaming River: Mystical Drifts of the Segura in the Ricote Valley) is an artistic project that views the Segura River as a mirror of the soul, a channel of revelations, a liquid form of being. A mystical and poetic look at the landscape of the Ricote Valley, suggesting that every corner of the river is a symbol of the inner journey.

The presence of the river and its derivations through weirs, irrigation channels, aqueducts, mines, waterwheels, fences… are explored as a metaphor for spiritual becoming based on the thinking of Ibn Arabi, and relates it to the sensory, historical, and symbolic experience of the Segura River as it passes through the Ricote Valley through its inhabitants and how their hopes, desires, and dreams have been shaped.

In short, El río que sueña aims to reconstruct a spiritual geography of the place and its inhabitants, a mirror of their desires.

BIO 

Raúl M Candela is a filmmaker and relational artist from Cartagena, currently based in Barcelona. He is the director of the production company Colibrí Studio, specializing in documentary and experimental cinema. His works as a director and screenwriter include La búsqueda del sonido, Playing somewhere over the rainbow, Demonstration, and Goodbye Ringo, films that were selected for international festivals such as Visions Du Rèel, Cinespaña, IDFA Amsterdam Film Festival, MoMA Fortnight, True/False Festival, HOTDOCS Toronto, DocVille Belgium, DocsBarcelona, and Sitges Film Festival. In 2014 he founded Laboratorio Reversible, a self-learning collective focused on experimentation and dissemination of analog cinema, emphasizing the local and everyday dimension, with which he co-directed the film veCINES, premiered at the L’Alternativa Festival in Barcelona and winner of first prize at the CO- International Cooperative Film Festival.

In 2023-24, he was awarded the Barcelona Production Grant by the La Capella Art Center for the delocalized project La Barrejada, culinary-creative laboratory.

Expanded cuisine, in which different artistic techniques and languages converge.

Likewise, as technical and creative audiovisual manager, he has organized exhibitions by artists such as Isaki Lakuesta, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa, Albert Serra, Wendelien Van Oldenborgh, Nuria Güell, and Rosella Biscotti, among others. He has also worked on creating and producing audiovisual installations at venues such as Matadero (Madrid), La Virreina – Centre de la Imatge i el Centre d´Art Contemporani Fabra i Coats (Barcelona), the San Telmo Museum, and the Kubo Kutxa Foundation (San Sebastian).