Kepa Gonzalez of the Instituto Cervantes on the old and new of visual culture in Spain and beyond.

What is your current role?
Cultural Director. What I do is to organise a lot of different cultural events to do with Spain and Spanish speaking countries: concerts, cinema festivals. In music I try to cater for all: Pop, Salsa, Classical.

How do visual arts fit in to your program?
Well there are a couple of points. First of all I like photography - I'm an amateur photographer. And then, I think it's actually important - in two directions. To involve local artists: painters, photographers or video film-makers. We look for Spanish themes and their points-of-view about Spanish cultures. Also, I like to bring different shows from Spain or the Latin American countries. So it's an important part of culture - the visual element.

Contemporary work and examples from the Spanish tradition?
Yes. It's easy to say what is happening now but I am interested to show what happened in the last century, before and after the war, etc. I like to combine modern, trendy, shocking things with more conservative portraits or landscapes. I think it's good to offer a wide range.

What's on show now?
Marc Llimargas' photography of Gaudi. I mean, everybody knows Gaudi because he was a genius. But still, his works have meaning. They remain trendy. So I wanted to bring this show to Manchester. Also Manchester is, at the moment, experimental. Buildings, flats, everything: trying to look for new formulas for re-inventing the city. So you look at what Gaudi did in the last century and you think there's plenty of inspiration.

Marc Llimargas: Gaudi; Architect, Artist and Thinker. Instituto Cervantes. To 4 May.

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