In 2015, Patrícia Soley-Beltran won the Anagrama Essay Prize for her ¡Divinas! Models, Power and Lies. At the time, some media outlets reported the news that a former model and television presenter had been awarded this prestigious recognition, which immediately activated all those know-it-all relatives who, throwing their hands up in horror, both men and women, persistent readers, determined that Anagrama had fallen so low. A former model? Ugh. It mattered little that, in addition to having practiced that profession in the 80s, the author of that brilliant essay ---which today is an absolute reference--- also treasured two decades of academic life, with a degree in Cultural History from the University of Aberdeen and a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh.
Now, enjoying a morning vermouth from the house with her olives, focused on a conversation for which the radio has been duly turned off, she recalls ---without losing her smile and an infectious optimism and friendliness--- when, in 1989, she stopped modeling and left here to resume her studies: "I was absolutely clear that I had to go far from Spain. In fact, I left thinking of not returning until my retirement, but my health and the need for sunlight made me come back. I had forgotten how difficult this country is and it made sure to remind me."
Twenty years had passed and, renouncing the security of a civil service examination to enter the Generalitat, Patrícia Soley-Beltran chose "to pay the very high price of precariousness and enter the academic world." The 2008 crisis was pressing and that's when she started writing ¡Divinas!, "and thus risk everything on one card, because I still don't know if that was recklessness."
That book contained "my research carried out over twenty years. It took me four to write it, giving the best of myself, as a person and as a researcher." That pride emerges when young people from high schools contact her to interview her about it, "because I made that book with a divulgative spirit to try to prevent someone from making the same mistakes as me." She pauses and continues: "The truth is that, in my life, I have surprised myself because I have turned out to be much more resilient than I ever would have imagined: I suppose by managing to keep learning and renewing my professional skills."
A comprehensive education
This "Barcelona native, very Barcelona native," as she likes to define herself, remembers with special affection the school where she studied, "where they taught me the norm and how to transgress it. Ricard Salvat directed our theater productions and my physics and English teacher was a Cuban architect who had made the revolution with Castro and then had a falling out with him. He taught us English with Leonard Cohen songs. Can you imagine singing Suzanne at 11 years old? We went to all the galleries on Consell de Cent and to Miró and Maeght. I saw a lot of cinema. At the Pippo Studio School, they let us grow up being special, as all children are, although they didn't tell us, so we thought being special was the most normal thing. The surprise came later. I also studied piano at the Granados-Marshall Academy and dance at Magrinyà: I love music and dance and in Barcelona we have a lot of that."
This innate restlessness and breadth of vision, where well-being and bodily expression are as important as intellectual and emotional cultivation, is what, possibly, most deeply defines this woman who had two lives: one on the runways and television sets, and another in the world of ideas, culture, and knowledge. Both, moreover, harmonized.
--- And what are you currently working on?
--- After publishing a guide on gender-equal cultural management, commissioned by the Barcelona City Council, I am now working as a gender perspective consultant for the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB). Specifically, reviewing the narratives, roles, communication, and management of the thirteen municipal museums and archives. It is a beautiful and pioneering work of re-vision for innovation. I am also opening a new exclusively online art gallery for La Térmica.
That's not all, because, on the literary-essayistic front, Patrícia has in hand "a book that portrays several decades of the city's cultural history, through anecdotes that happened in my family's restaurants. Stories my father told me."
In the name of the father
From the happy moments anchored in her memory, the researcher retrieves "those from my father's restaurant Petit Soley, particularly brilliant." These are the memories with which she is shoring up that sentimental remembrance with which to honor her progenitor, "who died at the beginning of summer 2020 and, although I knew it could happen, now I'm finding it hard to continue with the book alone. But his joy was so expansive that I couldn't write something sad for him," she affirms, waiting for covid to give a respite so she can organize "a farewell party-funeral, just as he asked me to".
In love with her neighborhood, the Gòtic ---"even if it's full of stories of blood and fire"---, Patrícia assures she grew up on five meters of splendor and ruins: "Barcelona knows me very well, the stones speak to me!", she laughs.
--- And something about the city you don't like?
--- Classism, nepotism, overtourism, noise pollution and air pollution bother me a lot, but what truly repulses me is the smell of urine in the alleys of Ciutat Vella, particularly in summer. It's intolerable!
But not even that makes Patrícia Soley-Beltran lose her smile, who, comfortable in her condition as a regular at the Bar, asks for another vermouth and to take a look at the menu.