My home is the world: I never forget my roots to follow the path

Photos: Courtesy Ginés Serrán & Pepe Compaz

A city shaped by the winds of the Strait and the imprint of millennia-old civilizations, Ginés Serrán was born—a creator who from a very young age knew that his destiny lay in artistic exploration and dialogue with diverse cultures. That conviction led him to New York, where he studied Anthropology and Archaeology, building a solid foundation to understand symbols, collective memory, and shared roots. Painting was his first medium, though he soon discovered its limits.

“Paintings are sold and end up in a museum or a collector’s home, where most people cannot always see them. A sculpture, however—especially a monumental work—belongs to everyone: it stands outdoors, visible twenty-four hours a day, reshaping a city’s image, beautifying it, transmitting a message, and becoming part of people’s identity,” he said in an exclusive interview with Sports & Lifestyle.

The monumentality of these works reflects not only aesthetic ambition but also a profound commitment to the city’s identity. Facing the Trujillo Building rises Calypso, wearing a diadem that bears Ceuta’s coat of arms and a bracelet adorned with the symbols of its four cultures—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu.

His monumental work unfolded across five continents. In Kentucky, Vulcan became a cultural landmark. In the Philippines, Emperor—rising twenty-three meters high—stands as the country’s largest monument. The goddess Fortuna will soon crown a thirty-five-meter obelisk as a symbol of prosperity. His series dedicated to Magellan honors those who dared to circumnavigate the planet, linking directly to the artist’s own lineage as the son of a seafarer, heir to a sensibility shaped by travel and wind.

In Asia, the Americas, and Europe, his sculptures have become urban landmarks and symbols of shared identity. And though his home expanded to embrace the planet, Serrán never ceased to think of Ceuta as his root and point of departure.

It’s no coincidence that his works rise in public spaces: his purpose is that art be shared. That in Ceuta, Málaga, New York, London, Rome, or China, anyone may look up and encounter a sculpture that demands neither ticket nor barrier. “Your home is the world, and you begin to respect and value different ideas and cultures; that enriches you.” That phrase sums up the experience of a life: transforming the planet into an open studio, and into a home forged in bronze.

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