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FOC, Valencia as the World Capital of Fire Festivities
After being selected as World Design Capital for 2022, Valencia is positioned to showcase the industries and traditions that have made the city famous throughout the world. And if there is one event for which Valencia is recognized beyond its borders, it is Las Fallas. Therefore, it was essential for our programme to include a section dedicated to this fiesta. The result is FOC: Fallas, Tradition and Local Design.
The main aim of FOC (meaning FIRE in the Valencian language) is to position the Valencian region as the “World Capital of Fire Festivities”, helping not only to present the rich heritage found in our region, but also to encourage synergies and cultural exchanges with other fire festivities.
The activities are scheduled to be held mainly during February and March 2022, but also throughout the year, with an extensive agenda that includes exhibitions, conferences, round tables and projections with the common theme of the Fallas and which we summarize below.
As part of the film cycle Falles de Celuloide: ficción i realista de les falles, the film “Regino Mas, l’art del foc”, directed by Joana Chilet, will be shown on Tuesday 15 February at 7 p.m. in the Auditorio Santiago Grisolía of the Museo de Ciencias, Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, accompanied by a debate with the filmmakers.
The publication “Una crida a la fiesta. Guía de los carteles de las fallas (1929-2021)”, by Gil Manuel Hernández Martí, is a guide depicting reproductions of the official posters announcing the Fallas from 1929 to 2021, including the runner-up posters which are on show, together with the official ones, in the Museo Fallero of Valencia. It will be presented on 17 February at the Centre del Carme.
The aim is to promote one of the most relevant cultural assets of the Fallas, the fiesta posters, featuring the work of eminent poster artists such as Josep Segrelles, Vicent Canet, Rafael Raga, Santiago Carrilero, Vicente Ballester, José Amérigo, Vicente Gil, Enrique Yelo, Rafael Contreras, Vicente Lorenzo, Manuel Boix, Marisa Llongo, Martín Forés and Ibán Ramón, among others.
As part of the film cycle Falles de Celuloide: ficción i realista de les falles, within FOC, the film La presencia de les Falles en els audiovisuals de ficció will be shown on Tuesday 22 February at 7 p.m. at the Santiago Grisolía Auditorium of the Science Museum, Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències. After the projection, a debate will be held with the filmmakers.
The booklet Dissenyar Icones, edited by the Asociación Cultural Falla Penya el Mocador de Sagunt, benefits from the participation of leading national and Valencian designers, architects, illustrators and artists, including seven national award winners. The aim is to reflect on an evolution towards more innovative and sustainable Fallas, designing a city that is more welcoming, friendly and visitable during Fallas week. The design world in general can play a fundamental role. The booklet will be presented on 23 February at the Centre del Carme.
The round table Diàleg: Exposició Falles experimental, experimentar amb falles will include Pepe Romero, Jaume Chornet and Leonardo Gómez (curators of the exhibition of the same name to open in April at the Fallas Museum of Valencia, Polytechnic University of Valencia), Amparo Alonso (Universitat de València), José Nicola (president of the I+E Federation) , Ricardo Ruíz (Federation I + E) and Reyes Pe (fallera artist)
The Talk will be held on 24 February at 7 p.m. in the multipurpose space of the Junta Central Fallera.
Some 300 festivities base their raison d’être on fire. “FOC, designing fire”, by José Francisco Carsi Navarro, sets out to make Valencia the capital of fire festivities, generating synergies with other celebrations via their shared links and introducing the inherent characteristics of the Fallas to the world.
The aim of the project is to show the whole world the characteristics inherent to the fiesta of the Fallas. Its cultural industry, divided into different trades (art, design, craftsmanship, fashion, gold- and silver-smithery, music, pyrotechnics, etc.), as well as its “social industry”, its strong associational fabric. The project will be presented on 1 March at the Centre del Carme.
Pyrotechnics lovers have an appointment on March 5 and 12 in Valencia. The experimental pyrotechnics event ‘Pólvora a la vespra’ returns to the calendar of March events for the 2022 Fallas. Four Fallas commissions simultaneously celebrate several innovative shows in their demarcations, open to the public and the neighbours who will have fun with pyrotechnic art and its novelties.
On Saturday, March 5 at 8:00 p.m. it is the turn of the Falla Pintor Segrelles with the participation of the Vulcano Pyrotechnics. An hour later it will be time to go to the Falla Convent of Jerusalem-Mathematician Marçal to see what the Aitana Pyrotechnics prepared. And that same night, starting at 11 pm, FX Caballer Pyrotechnics will be in charge of showing their art to the Falla Maestro Gozalbo-Conde de Altea.
The appointment with this new edition of the ‘Polvora a al vespra’ concludes a week later, on Saturday, March 12 at 8:00 p.m., again with those from the Vulcano Pyrotechnics to the commission of the Falla Padre Jurel-Corona. The “Pólvora a la vespra” project is a festive act where fireworks are presented the weekend before the big party. Its organizers trust that the Fallas of the different neighborhoods of the city that adhere to the initiative and the gunpowder will not be limited only to the traditional mascletas and fireworks castles of the official program, but that this appointment will serve to be the first showcase of the surprises and inventiveness of the pyrotechnic masters who export to national and international competitions around the world.
At the conference Burning Man: a living laboratory for civic design, on 10 March at the Centre del Carme, Stuart Mangrum will reflect on the evolution of the Burning Man project, from an “anarchic temporary autonomous zone” to a fully-fledged city. The metropolis that emerges annually from Burning Man, Black Rock City, is an urban planner’s dream: Since it is dismounted and removed every year, it has become a living laboratory for civic design, studied by academics and civil servants from around the world.
The exhibition CREMAR EL DISSENY, curated by Rafa Rivera, Ricardo Ruíz and CTAV, will establish a connection between design, Fallas and art and will benefit from the participation of authors such as Ceballos&Sanabria, Pichiavo, Escif, Manolo Martín and Estudio Yinsen. The exhibition will be accompanied by workshops and guided visits and will be inaugurated on 11 March at the Colegio Territorial de Arquitectos de València (CTAV).
The Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory, essayist and art critic Román de la Calle has developed, in the llibrets or booklets of the Falla Castielfiabib-Marqués de San Juan of 2018, 2019 and 2020, an essay entitled ‘Materials per a una teoria estètica de les falles experimentals’. These three texts are brought together in a unique work in the form of an academic essay on the festivity.
The essay will be presented on 31 March at the Centre del Carme, and this presentation will be accompanied by a round table to discuss the topic of Innovative and Experimental Fallas in the context of the 2022 season.
The exhibition ‘Experiment with the Fallas’ shows the role played by the public institutions in encouraging and promoting experimental and innovative Fallas, as in the case of the Institut Valencià de la Joventut (IVAJ) in the nineteen-nineties and the City Council of Valencia with the Experimental and Innovative Fallas Competition, which was introduced in 1998. With this in mind, the display will include graphic, photographic, cinematographic and documentary material, as well as sketches, figures and models.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on 28 April in the exhibition hall ‘Espai Josep Alarte’ of the Museo Fallero de València.
The next event will be held in November, during the International Medium-Length Film Festival La Cabina. The programme will include the projection of the documentary “Falles Innovadores i Experimentals”: This documentary, directed by Reyes Pe and Raquel Cambralla sets out to narrate the history, evolution and current context of the experimental Fallas movement – including the present situation of uncertainty deriving from the pandemic scenario – informing about all aspects of this movement.
The FOC cycle will draw to a close with the final event which will take place in December. The exhibition “The Fallas and Design” will show the links that have existed historically between the fiesta of the Fallas and the design world, in the catafalques as well as in the booklets, magazines, books, publications, programmes, merchandising, signage, advertising, posters and awards of the Falla sector. The show will pay special attention to designers and the influence of different design trends on the fiesta, but also, vice-versa, insofar as the iconography of the Fallas has been taken into account in the world of design, especially Valencian design.