QUANTIFIED AUTOBIOGRAPHY (HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO BE YOURSELF!). Creative Writing Workshop

CGAC presents this new writing laboratory, which will run over four months in fortnightly sessions.

The project lies at the intersection of literature and conceptual art, where participants will write their own autobiography.

Taking as a starting point the publication Quantified Autobiography ou que difícil é ser María Meijide, we propose a workshop in autobiographical narrative in which what we read about the author in the book is transformed into an open question for each participant.

The workshop will include readings, and participants will be invited to write short autobiographical pieces using a playful structure inspired by the exercises of the French Oulipo. We will organise words as if they were shopping lists, manuals, or official forms. Questions will be posed such as: How many places have you lived in? How many times have you moved house? Rank your dislikes from least to most…

Echoing lived experiences, we will attempt to root these autobiographical pieces in the present: the brief story of our lives over the past few years.

Material produced in the workshop may serve as the foundation for a collective, infinite, and linked writing project, suitable for dissemination online.

SESSIONS

8 and 22 FEBRUARY
8 and 22 MARCH
12 and 26 APRIL
10 and 31 MAY

MARÍA MEIJIDE (Santiago de Compostela, 1978) holds a degree in Fine Arts, specialising in Painting, from the University of Seville. She completed a Master’s in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, with a thesis entitled ‘Personal and Others’ Intimacies: On the Painting of Interior Scenes.’ She also completed a Master’s in Graphic Arts at the Fundación CIEC, covering screen printing, lithography, etching, and woodcut.

María Meijide is an established visual artist in the Galician scene, specialising in large-format figurative painting and travel sketchbooks. Her work is vibrant, colourful, and autobiographical, with extensive experience in national and international exhibitions.

She has published two extensive travel sketchbooks and an emotional cartography of Compostela. Her latest publication is a notebook-format piece titled Quantified Autobiography ou que difícil é ser María Meijide, co-published by Tulipa Editorial.

In 2021, she was awarded the 16th Jesús Núñez International Graphic Arts Prize.

TARGET GROUP

The workshop is aimed at adults and does not require prior experience.

REGISTRATION PERIOD

19 January - 4 February 2026

REGISTRATION

Participation in the workshop is free. Interested individuals should email cgac.educacion@xunta.gal with the following details: full name, education, field of work or interest, email address, and contact telephone number. Each applicant will receive a confirmation message.
A maximum of two people may register per application. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

CERTIFICATION

The CGAC will issue a course completion certificate to those who attend at least 75% of the sessions.