The Malaspina Award is an honour bestowed by the Embassy of Spain in Australia and the Association of Spanish Researchers in Australia-Pacific (SRAP). Since 2018, it is annually awarded to individuals or organisations that have made a significant contribution to the scientific and/or cultural relationships between Spain and Australia.
This award is named after Alejandro Malaspina, who led the Spanish World Scientific Expedition 1789-1794 that carried out studies in natural history, cartography, ethnography, astronomy, hydrography and medicine in Latin America and the Pacific. The expedition was the first foreign mission to visit Sydney in 1793, just five years after the arrival of the First Fleet.
The 2020 Malaspina Award has been conferred to the Australian artist Jennifer Turpin.
Image: Jennifer Turpin
Jennifer was the first invited artist to the SRAP Water Forum in 2015 and she has extensively collaborated in the Art and Science activities of SRAP ever since. An outstanding outcome of this collaboration has been the “Operation Crayweed” project with Adriana Verges, that got the 2016 Sydney Water Environmental Artist Award; and that has involved many other actions conducing to the Festival of Seaweed in 2021. Jennifer’s work has become part of Sydney’s urban landscape. They include, among others, the sculpture “Halo” in Chippendale (2012 Engineering Excellence Awards), “Storm Waters”, in Zetland (2003 Planning NSW Award for design, NAWIC & the Lloyd Rees Civic Award RAIA); “Tied to Tie”, in Pyrmont (2000 Arup award for Art in Built Environment), and the “Light Line Social Square” project (2020 Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design).
Jennifer Turpin’s work demonstrates the value of multidisciplinary collaboration between art, engineering, architecture and science, and has created a new dimension of liveability by the interactive play of urban spaces with the elements of nature (air, wind, water or vegetation).
The III Malaspina Award has been proudly sponsored by Navantia Australia. The award is embodied by the statuette “Heart” designed by the internationally renowned Spanish sculptor Óscar Martín de Burgos.
Image: II Malaspina Award by Óscar Martín de Burgos (2019)
The award ceremony will take place on 27 November in Sydney, on the occasion of the VI Australia-Spain Research Forum by the Spanish Researchers in Australia-Pacific. The statuette will be conferred by the Ambassador of Spain to Australia, H.E. Ms. Alicia Moral Revilla.
About SRAP-IEAP
SRAP-IEAP disseminate excellent-quality science and facilitate collaboration opportunities to contribute with our work to the cultural enrichment and knowledge advance of both Australian and Spanish Societies.