The Prado Links Cinema and Painting Through a Participatory Digital Campaign

Published on January 28, 2026 | Translated from Spanish
Promotional image of the Goyas at the Prado campaign showing a visual collage where frames from films nominated for the Goya Awards overlap with details from classic paintings in the museum's collection.

The Prado Links Cinema and Painting with a Participative Digital Campaign

The Prado Museum has launched an innovative action on social platforms, inviting its community to establish connections between films aspiring to the Goya for best picture and paintings from its collection. Titled Goyas at the Prado, this initiative encourages users to share their creative links between contemporary cinema and paintings from centuries past. The goal is to activate interaction and propose fresh perspectives on the artistic legacy, using modern film narrative as a bridge 🎨🎬.

A Visual Mirror Game Open to All

The dynamic starts with a series of suggestions published by the institution, pairing films like Society of the Snow or Close Your Eyes with pictorial works that reflect similar themes or atmospheres. Thus, a survival movie can be linked to canvases showing inhospitable landscapes or maritime disasters. Participants have the opportunity to expand this dialogue, posting their own associations under the hashtag #GoyasEnElPrado to weave a collaborative and ephemeral archive of interpretations.

Examples of Proposed Connections:
  • Relate Society of the Snow to paintings of extreme landscapes or shipwrecks.
  • Link the film Close Your Eyes to works that explore introspection or memory.
  • Debate whether 20,000 Species of Bees dialogues better with a floral still life or a mythological scene.
This initiative demonstrates how museums can use social networks not only to inform, but to build participative narratives.

Strategy to Connect with New Audiences

By leveraging the popular appeal of the Goya Awards, the Prado seeks to refresh its digital conversation and capture the attention of a younger segment or those less accustomed to classical painting. The action fits into a broader trend where cultural institutions generate content that activates the viewer's gaze and blurs the traditional line between the work and the viewer.

Key Objectives of the Campaign:
  • Renew the museum's digital discourse and attract diverse audiences.
  • Foster active and creative participation on social networks.
  • Generate new readings of the pictorial heritage through cinema.

An Open Cultural Debate

The campaign transcends mere promotion to become a collective exercise in interpretation. It invites questioning and discovery, as the museum itself suggests by asking whether the film 20,000 Species of Bees converses better with a still life by Van der Hamen or a scene of minor gods—a debate as passionate as those generated by the Film Academy. Thus, the Prado not only exhibits art, but proposes experiencing it through a universal contemporary language 🎭.