Xavier Ortells

With a master’s degree in Regional Studies: East Asia from Columbia University, Xavier Ortells has a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). His research is concerned with the modern and contemporary visual culture of China, for example in examining the relationship between Chinese artistic production and the social and economic changes that have come with the opening of the country. He is a lecturer in Chinese studies, a translator specialising in academic literature, and a member of the ALTER research group at the Open University of Catalonia, in which he has carried out research into Chinese-Spanish relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is also one of the managers of the digital China-Spain Archive and has curated exhibitions documenting the relations between the two countries. Moreover, he has also recently been engaged in research on pioneers of photography in China, among them Juan Mencarini.