Bio.
Lilián Pallares—writer, poet, actor and audiovisual creative—was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1976. She studied Journalism y Audiovisual Communication at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia and moved to Spain in 2001, where she studied Literary Creation at the Escuela de Letras, Madrid. She has published the books Ciudad Sonámbula (Sleepwalking City, 2010), Voces Mudas ('Silent Voices', 2011), Pájaro, vértigo ('Bird, vertigo', 2014) and Bestial (2019) and has participated in many anthologies. Together with the New Zealand artist and poet Charles Olsen, they formed antenablue. creating surprising artistic and literary audiovisual projects.
In 2020 she received the award 10 colombianos, from the Colombian Embassy in Madrid for her artistic and personal achievements, contributing to strengthening the image of Colombia in Spain, and the prize Mujer migrante, from the Rumiñahui Association. In 1999 she won the Unpublished Poetry Prize of the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla. In 2007 she won first prize for her stories: Reflexiones del Va y Ven, organised by the Toumai Magazine, and Servicio Anónimo, organised by the Fusionarte Cultural Association; both of which are included in her first collection of short stories Sleepwalking City (2010).
With her theatrical investigation company Afrolyrics, together with director y dramatist Daniel Aguirre, she has created the shows—Una historia de amor y tambor and Bestial—based on her books, where poetry, storytelling, dance, visuals and Afrocolombian drums are woven together. Her shows Palabra Azul – Poesía del agua (Blue World – Water Poetry) and Cuentos Bajo el Sol (Stories in the Sun) are created for family audiences.
In 2011 in Venice, Italy, and in the SGAE, Madrid, she participated in the recital of poetry with piano and dance, Agita Flamenco with Charles Olsen. She has acted in poetry films such as And the Alarm Rang and Frozen Cry, directed by Charles Olsen, and the recent film directed by the Sevilliano filmmaker Jesús Pulpón. In 2020 she formed part of the cast of the Cuban zarzuela Cecilia Valdés in the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, directed by Carlos Wagner. In 2023, she participated in the workshop Performance/Dance with Rosalía Polo, creating the piece 'Umbral' for El Circuito Femenino de Vitruvio, which they presented in the Centro Cultural La Parcería.
She is founder and director together with Charles Olsen of the online poetry project Palabras Prestadas, and the artistic and literary audiovisual producer antenablue. In 2020 they received an Artists Residency in Matadero Madrid on the theme of Childhood, Play and Public Space. They have also given writing workshops for children and the elderly, and painting workshops in primary schools with the programme of Madrid City Council 'Madrid, Un libro abierto'.
In 2022 and 2023, Lilián and Charles received the Our Little Roses Poetry Fellowship in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where they gave creative poetry workshops, for one month each year, in the orphanage for girls Our Little Roses. With the girls they created the poetry film Grey Silence which was selected, in 2023, for ZEBRINO—international competition of poetry film for children and youth—of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, in Berlín—and En una casa flota una nube which premiered in the festival Centroamérica cuenta in Casa de América, Madrid in 2024.
In 2023, they were both on the jury of the first Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival which took place in Wellington, New Zealand, November 2023, organised in collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington UNESCO City of Film y Lighthouse Cinemas. In Auckland, Lilián presented her poetry performance Invocación in the inauguration of the exhbition Pueblo de Tambores – images and sounds of Afrocolombia, a journey through Palenque de San Basilio and the Colombian Pacific through the lens of the photographer Kadambari Raghukumar, with support from the Colombian Consulate. She was also a guest poet in Summer Reading: Aotearoa & Elsewhere in The Undercurrent, Wellington, and the Salon Series Reading organised by poet and cultural activist Michelle Elvy in Dunedin and presented by Sophia Wilson.
In 2024, Lilián was awarded the residency Raíces Nómadas, provided by the International Organisation for Migration OIM to the social platform for Migrant, Artist and Artisan Migrant Women in Spain, MMAAE, with which she actively collaborates. She took part in the performances La Sed (Thirst), presented in the International Day 'Migrant Women breaking barriers in politics' in the programme We Empower in Europe, and La Negra – Un cuerpo entre historias fragmentadas ('Black Woman – A body among fragmented stories') in Espacio Afro to celebrate Afro Colombian Day, organised by the Colombian Consulate in Madrid.
From 2024, she has been invited by Tufts-Skidmore—University of Boston, Massachusettes in Madrid with its award-winning programme of global education with a focus on diversity, human rights and intercultural conscience—to share her poetry and films in the course 'Leer en las cruces' ('Read at the intersections').
In 2025, as well as working on the project Palabras Prestadas Videopoetry with Support for Contemporary Creation 2024–2025 from the Madrid City Council, she has led, together with Charles Olsen poetry film workshops for children in the Ralli Museum Marbella, for migrant Venezuelan women in the association Medanos En Sanse, and for women victims of armed conflict with the Colombian Consulate in Madrid. Also, with the Spanish Ministry of Culture, they have given poetry film workshops with children of migrant families in the Cerralbo Museum, youth at risk of social exclusion in the Museum of Decorative Arts, and with gypsy women in the Sefardí Museum in Toledo.
Their community poetry film projects have been featured among the Good Practices in Together4Integration, a platform co-financed by the European Union.
See latest publications.
Visit Lilian's blog.
Find out about the surprising projects of antenablue.
Contact by email or Whatsapp.
lilianp@yahoo.com
+34 676069873