Culture celebrates International Women's Day 2026 with a wide-ranging programme of activities

The Ministry of Culture celebrates International Women's Day 2026 under the slogan 'Equal to create, free to live'. The 8 March celebration extends throughout the Ministry of Culture's various departments, with a diverse programme of activities covering areas such as museums, performing arts, literature, cultural rights, and audiovisual media.

Cultures in equality. Three transformative perspectives on the cultural fabric'

As part of the 8 March celebrations, the Directorate General for Cultural Rights is organising the conference 'Cultures in Equality. Three transformative perspectives on the cultural fabric'. This activity, conceived and designed within the framework of the Ministry of Culture's Equality Observatory, addresses equality in different cultural sectors.

The sessions will take place over three days: on Tuesday, 10 March, the Jorge Semprún Auditorium at the Ministry of Culture will host the session 'Video Games and New Technologies'; on Tuesday, 17 March, the session 'Intersectionality' will be held at the National Archaeological Museum; and on Tuesday, 24 March, the Cine Doré will host the meeting 'Violence: Combating Gender Violence and Sexual Harassment in the Cultural Sector'.

8 March in State Museums

The sixteen State Museums managed by the Ministry of Culture throughout the country have prepared a special programme throughout March that includes exhibitions, themed tours, concerts, and family workshops.

In Madrid, the National Archaeological Museum is offering, among other activities, themed tours of the permanent collection and the exhibition 'Half of the World. Women in Indigenous Mexico', throughout the month. The National Museum of Romanticism presents a weekly tour of the palace that houses the museum, featuring the testimonies and voices of 19th-century women.

The Cerralbo Museum has scheduled for 7 March the intergenerational workshop "The Footprint of Women: Creating a Family Album", along with the concert "Unique: Extraordinary Authors" and the themed tour "Women at Cerralbo: A Journey Through Its History," featuring the women who shared daily life in the palace.

The National Museum of Anthropology will offer themed tours of its collections and will host the exhibitions "Hotel of the Plundered Artifact" by Agnes Essonti and "The Burning: A Retrospective of Elena del Rivero". For its part, the Museum of the Americas will offer, among other activities, the themed tours "Women in the Viceroyalty" on 6 and 20 March, and "America Has a Woman's Name", aimed at families, on 7 March.

In Toledo, the Sephardic Museum is hosting the creative writing workshop 'Voices of Sephardic Women' on 8 March and the conference 'Sephardic Universe, the Soul in Memory' on 24 March. Meanwhile, the El Greco Museum is already hosting the art installation 'Honour' and will offer a discussion with the artist Elisa Sanz on 10 March.

The National Museum and Research Centre of Altamira, located in Santillana del Mar, is presenting an exhibition about Emilia Pardo Bazán's visit to the Altamira cave, just 15 years after its discovery. The exhibition will be open until June.

In Valladolid, the National Sculpture Museum will offer a guided tour of the exhibition 'LadyLike.' Discipline, beauty and violence' on 11 March. On 18 and 25 March, the museum will offer the themed tour "Rara Avis" (Rare Bird), and on 5 March, the activity 'Florero no, raíz' (Not a Vase, but a Root) will be held, aiming to dismantle gender stereotypes. Also on 5 March, the Casa de Cervantes Museum will host the performance "A Body is a City" by Celia BSoul as part of the MusaE programme, and will offer themed tours in search of Dulcinea del Toboso on the 19th and 26th of this month.

In Cartagena, at the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology (ARQVA), Diana Cuéllar will give the talk "Self-Narrative and Feminism: Expanded Possibilities" on 25 March. And in Mérida, the National Museum of Roman Art is organising the themed week 'Being a Woman in Rome,' which includes, among other activities, the storytelling session 'Ceres and the Creation of the Seasons' and the reenactment 'Daughters of the Sun.'

In addition, on 18 March, the General Directorate of State Museums is promoting the event 'Those Who Were Missing: Women and Museums, Memory and Present,' which will feature a Wikipedia editing workshop and an informative talk by Eugenia Tenenbaum in collaboration with Wikisphere.

Other activities in the field of heritage and the arts

The Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (IPCE) joins the celebration of International Women's Day with the exhibition 'The Female Image,' a journey through one hundred years of history via the holdings of its photographic archive. The exhibition analyses how the representation of women has traditionally been linked to the family sphere and conditioned by male figures, confining them to roles such as mother, wife, or daughter.

In Soria, the National Centre for Photography presents the performance piece 'Ancestors' at the Palacio de la Audiencia on 18 March. In this piece, artist Rocío Bueno will work live on archival portraits of 20th-century women photographers, integrating natural elements as material and poetic resources to generate ritual gestures that function as a tribute to and recovery of a historically neglected legacy.

The State Archives have also programmed special activities for 8 March. The National Historical Archive will hold various activities on 6 and 9 March, including the presentation of the book 'Reinar en femenino' by María Jesús Fuente, the unveiling of the featured piece of the month, dedicated this time to Queen Urraca-the first woman to reign in the West-and a tour of its collections related to female royal figures, among others.

In Salamanca, the Historical Memory Documentary Centre, in collaboration with the University of Salamanca, is organising the Women's Legacy conference, entitled 'More Than a Project for Equality,' with a programme aimed at showcasing the cultural and professional legacy of women.

Furthermore, to delve deeper into the role of women in rural heritage, the webinar 'El patrimonio rural a través de las mujeres jóvenes' (Rural heritage through the eyes of young women) will be held, accessible by prior registration through the social media profile @somospatrimonio. The session will feature eight young women involved in the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage in rural areas, who will present their projects, ongoing initiatives, and future lines of work.

Participation in the Ellas Crean Festival

The Ministry of Culture is once again collaborating with Ellas Crean, the long-running festival of culture created by women, organised by the Women's Institute, an autonomous body attached to the Ministry of Equality. The event celebrates its 22nd edition from 5 to 15 March.

This multidisciplinary festival includes the 'Dance in Museums' programme, which will take place in four of the sixteen State Museums managed by the Ministry of Culture. This year, the work of six dancers and choreographers will be presented, whose projects celebrate dance as an artistic language, a form of resistance, and a tool for shared transformation.

Cristiane Boullosa's company performs 'Flor del Desierto' today at the Costume Museum; Inés Narváez Arróspide will be at the Museum of the Americas on 7 March with 'La peor de todas'; Lucía Montes and Mado Dallery will arrive at the Costume Museum on 8 March with 'After The Drop'; Helena Martín's company will perform 'Cara de Perro (excerpt)' on 11 March at the National Museum of Decorative Arts; finally, Melania Olcina (2023 National Dance Prize winner) will be at the National Archaeological Museum on March 15 with 'Halo. The Voices of the Wind'.

All activities are free and open to the public until capacity is reached.

Audiovisual activities

The audiovisual offerings will be presented by the Spanish Film Archive (Filmoteca Española), the branch of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) of the Ministry of Culture responsible for the preservation, research, documentation, and dissemination of film and cinematographic heritage. Filmoteca Española will present the series and retrospectives 'Women Editors of Spanish Cinema (1942-1967)', 'Kelly Reichardt: Wandering Lives', and 'Lillian Hellman: Fiction, Memory, and Commitment', which will take place throughout March and April at the Cine Doré. On Tuesday 10 March, this same venue will host the colloquium 'From Pink to Blue: Women in the Franco Regime through NO-DO Newsreels'.

In addition, since 2 March, the ICAA's online film platform, PLATFO, has included the short film 'Melodrama infernal' directed by Josefina Molina as a new addition, and the Contraplano section is dedicated to 'Women Filmmakers in the Editing Room'.

Literature and performing arts

The General Directorate of Books, Comics, and Reading has joined the celebration of International Women's Day with the presentation of the photobook "Apuntes para un inventario de Carmen Martín Gaite" (Notes from an Inventory of Carmen Martín Gaite) by portrait photographer Lisbeth Salas. With this session, which took place last Monday, the Ministry of Culture concludes an extensive programme of activities held throughout 2025, aimed at recognising one of the key writers of 20th-century Spanish narrative, on the centenary of her birth.

In addition, on 6 March, the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid will host the "Fraternity" evening, jointly organised by the Ministry of Culture and the Trobades & Premis Mediterranis Albert Camus. This event will feature a dialogue with Remedios Zafra and Paco Cerdà, winners of the 2025 National Essay and Narrative Prizes, respectively, followed by a poetry recital by Miriam Reyes, winner of the 2025 National Poetry Prize.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM) will present a series of activities, including a programme featuring women at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. On Friday 6 and Saturday 7 March, the play "Las hijas de Eva" will be presented in the theatre's bar, and a new production of "Jugar con fuego" will also premiere that month. The theatre will also install images of several prominent women from the world of zarzuela in the 19th and early 20th centuries in its lobby, along with information about the "Women of Zarzuela" project, which the institution is carrying out in collaboration with Wikisfera. This project aims to highlight the contributions of the artists whose Wikipedia pages were created during its first edition.

Furthermore, the National Centre for the Dissemination of Music (CNDM) will present a concert by the Spanish Brass ensemble on Saturday, 7 March in Segovia, and on Monday, 9 March in Madrid. These concerts will feature the premieres of new works by the twelve composers who inaugurated the CNDM's Women Composers Workshop and the Cádiz Festival. Under the name 'Como el agua del río', pieces by María José Arenas, Anna Bofill, Teresa Catalán, Consuelo Díez, Carme Fernández Vidal, Pilar Jurado, Marisa Manchado, Diana Pérez Custodio, Iluminada Pérez Frutos, Rosa María Rodríguez, Dolores Serrano Cueto and Laura Vega Santana will be performed for the first time.

Non official translation