SANTIAGO FORT BARBERÀ
Multidisciplinary visual artist
General information
Full name: Santiago Fort Barberà
Year and place of birth: 1959, Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)
Current residence: Barcelona
Education: Degree in Information Sciences (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Other studies: Piano and saxophone at the Conservatory of Music of Barcelona; guitar for free.
Childhood and initial training (1959–1980)
Son of Pascual Fort Pascual, a renowned artist, engraver, enameller and gallery owner, and Mercedes Barberà Rusiñol, Santiago Fort Barberà grew up in an intense artistic environment, between Tarragona, Barcelona i Cadaqués.
Before the age of twelve he already showed a natural inclination for the visual arts, experimenting with pictorial materials in the family workshop linked to the Galeria d’Art de Tarragona, run by his parents.
When he was twelve years old, his family moved permanently to Barcelona. During his time at the Institute (1973–1979), he maintained an active and creative spirit, organizing pictorial happenings, film forums, rock festivals and solidarity actions, anticipating a collective and experimental will that has marked his entire career.
At the same time, he studied piano and saxophone at the Barcelona Municipal Conservatory of Music and guitar free, developing a sonic sensitivity that is reflected in the rhythm and composition of his visual work.
Professional beginnings and journalistic activity (1980–2004)
Between 1980 and 1985, he studied a degree in Information Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During his university years, he began working as an editor at the Diari de Barcelona, acquiring journalistic experience and a critical view of reality.
Throughout this period, he worked as a journalist and photographer in various national media, also collaborating on film shoots and television productions.
Between 1988 and 1990, he opened and directed the Trade-Art-Gallery-Barcelona, dedicated to promoting emerging artists and new forms of plastic expression, thus continuing the family legacy of supporting emerging creation.
Artistic consolidation and exhibitions (2004–2018)
In 2004, on the occasion of the Barcelona Forum of Cultures, his artistic and humanist thinking was profoundly transformed under the influence of intercultural dialogue and the search for a system of global equality based on the dignity and essential value of human life.
In 2006, he began a cycle of deconstructive photography exhibitions, with the intention of showing that reality can be reinterpreted by the imagination, overcoming perceptual limits. He has exhibited regularly in Cadaqués (several editions of Mini Print International of Cadaqués), Barcelona (Cèntric-Point, Anna Valls Gallery) and other alternative spaces.
Conceptual research and global projects (2009–present)
From 2009, coinciding with the global economic crisis, Fort Barberà begins a stage of social and humanitarian reflection, developing projects that integrate art, philosophy and technology:
2009 – Publishes The capital of life. A value to discover and creates the blog Utopia Value Life.
2010 – Founds the participatory platform UNBasket, dedicated to promoting the basic value of life.
2011 – His proposal is selected for the Campus Party Milenio in Granada.
2012 – Awarded, among the six winners of the UOC&Plugged – New ideas competition, with the master's degree in Design and evaluation of cultural projects (academic discipline: Cultural studies/Theory and critical analysis).
2013 – Creates the blog Basic Pattern and the video The capital of life Standard Life.
2017 – Promotes a Popular Legislative Initiative and a global petition to the UN through Avaaz to recognize the value of the basic cost of survival.
2018 – Publishes the book Humanitarian Pact. Global peace.
2020 – Creates the HumanCoin cryptocurrency, a symbolic expression of the equivalence between life and economic value.
2022 – Launches the HumanCoin Tokens on the OpenSea (BitFort) platform.
2023 – Publishes The Human Capital Certificate, where artificial intelligence accepts the creation of a human capital certificate, as a new form of money, as well as the YouTube channel Global Solution.
2024 – Expand the project with the active presence of iHumanCoin on the platforms of TikTok, Instagram, ”X", Youtube @ihumancoin.
2025 – Develops the educational video games Caloric Intake (start-up) and Healthy Calories Quiz within the framework of the Global Humanitarian Pact.
Recent artistic stage (2024–2025)
In his return to painting, Santiago Fort Barberà begins a new stage focused on the search for human identity in the contemporary context. His current works—made with acrylics and oils, material textures and embossed lines—explore human interconnection and the duality of contemporary being.
This series is conceived as a meditation on the tension between chaos and order, emotion and reason, where color acts as living matter and line as a consciousness that unites and separates at the same time. The artist poses painting as a space for existential questioning: a conversation between the self and the other, between the visible and the intuitive, between matter and idea.
This work represents a synthesis between his humanist career and his contemporary plastic language. His purpose is to present this new series in Contemporary Art Galleries.
Thought and style
His work is based on the deconstruction of perception and the search for a technological humanism capable of reconciling art, science and society. The artist combines visual language, social reflection and digital experimentation, with a constant message: human life as a universal value and basic economic measure.
Current situation
He lives in Barcelona, where he continues to develop original work, audiovisual projects and cultural initiatives that unite art, education and global awareness. His career combines his family artistic heritage with a committed, contemporary and deeply humanist vision, focused on justice, sustainability and equality.