Folklore
Comparative study of duendes, fairies, household spirits, forest beings and liminal figures across different cultural traditions.
Central thesis: the duende is not treated here as a biological creature or a children’s toy. It is approached as a complex symbolic figure that cultures use to give form to the unknown, to territorial memory and to the border between human life and the more-than-human world.
A research line born from practice
The research developed around La Casa del Duende begins with an artistic practice and expands toward folklore studies, symbolic anthropology, cultural heritage, tourism, authorship and territorial memory.
It asks how a figure can move between oral tradition, handmade object, literary character, tourist image, ritual belief and contemporary artwork without those layers being confused.
Territory
Analysis of how stories and figures become attached to landscapes, paths, rivers, forests and places of memory.
Authorship
Documentation of contemporary artistic creation, its creators, chronology, visual language and later circulation.
Tourism
Study of how symbolic figures can be simplified, copied, commercialised or detached from their original context.
Material Culture
Attention to the handcrafted figure as an object that can activate stories, conversations and forms of cultural transmission.
Symbolic Literacy
Tools for distinguishing metaphor, myth, artistic fiction, belief, marketing and documented history.
The degradation of the symbol
Modern commercial culture often reduces the duende to a standardised cute character with a pointed hat. Earlier traditions are more diverse: some figures protect homes, others mark dangerous boundaries, punish greed, guard landscapes or express the unpredictable character of the wild.
The research does not attempt to prove supernatural claims. It studies what these figures do inside stories, communities, artworks and tourist economies.
Artistic duende
An artistic duende emerges from a specific creative process, aesthetic intention, material practice and authored narrative. Its meaning is not independent from the work that produced it.
Tourist duende
A tourist duende circulates as an image associated with a destination. It may help visitors connect with a place, but it can also become generic decoration when its history is removed.
Superstitious duende
A superstitious duende appears when literal powers, promises, rituals or fears are attributed to the figure. Those beliefs can be studied culturally without presenting them as verified facts.
Cultural Duendismo
Cultural Duendismo offers a framework for reading these layers together while preserving the distinction between tradition, artwork, tourism and belief.
Research questions
- How does a contemporary artwork become part of a city’s cultural imagination?
- What happens when an authored visual language is copied or detached from its origin?
- How can oral traditions be respected without inventing historical continuity?
- What role does the handmade object play in transmitting stories and values?
- How can tourism communicate symbolic material without turning it into superstition?
- What documentary practices help preserve the memory of independent cultural work?
Documents and publications
The project’s research is published through books, articles, working papers and open repositories. Records include ISBN and DOI identifiers, timelines, photographic evidence and essays on Cultural Duendismo.