Cultural Heritage and globalization: Trajectory, projects and strategies of the Santa María la Real Foundation (Aguilar de Campoo, Castile and Leon. Spain)

Abstract

In 1977, an association was formed around the ruins of a medieval monastery located in the small town of Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia, Castile and Leon. Spain) with the aim of recovering the monument and turning it into the center of the cultural revitalization of a region in increasing depopulation process, without great economic resources but with a very rich Cultural Heritage. Since then and until today, the activity that has been developed from the initiative has been enormous and very varied, and the Santa María la Real Foundation, heir to that association, has greatly diversified the sectors in which it works, also extending its problems throughout Spain and other countries. The link with Romanesque art, one of the hallmarks of the Aguilar region, has always remained very much alive, although it has gone much further, especially through the publication of an ambitious work, the Enciclopedia del Románico en la Península Ibérica a work of reference today. The international projection of this Foundation, in an increasingly globalized world and with a greater demand for culture and heritage, is even greater, with actions in different fields and in very diverse projects. However, the members of the Foundation have never forgotten the roots, nor their ideological convictions which animated them, more than forty years ago, without money, but with great enthusiasm, and decided that the role of civil society is the key to the preservation and dissemination of the Heritage and for that cultural wealth, far from being a cost, be seen as a huge resource.