March in Valencia: all the activities to experience design in the city

March in Valencia is synonymous with the Fallas, just as the start of spring means the beginning of a transformative cycle. This month, the programme of World Design Capital Valencia 2022 is full of the creative and transformative energy of fire and the new season.

To find out more, you can download the schedule for March with all the activities.

On 1 March, the special programme “FOC: Fallas, Tradition and Local Design” was inaugurated. It will last for several weeks, making the city of Valencia the setting for festivities that connect cultural tradition, artistic expression and experimentation through design.

During its consolidation as “World Capital of Fire Festivities”, Valencia will continue to bring design closer to residents and visitors throughout the whole month. Via its different activities and spaces, World Design Capital Valencia 2022 will open the debate around design from the gender perspective and will attract international attention to the rich heritage of the Valencian region with its links to both tradition and leading-edge design.

FOC, a programme of fiesta, satire, gunpowder and more design

After being selected as the global epicentre of design, Valencia was in no doubt that it would benefit from this unique opportunity to show the industry and tradition that have made it famous throughout the world. And if there is one event for which Valencia is recognized beyond its borders, it is the Fallas, the most important tourist attraction in the region. For this reason, numerous events will be held during the month of March that will reflect with leading Fallas figures about their past, present and future.

The FOC programme began on 1 March with the presentation at the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC) of the paper publication “FOC, designing fire”, by José Francisco Carsi Navarro, a work that proposes making Valencia the capital of fire festivities, generating connections with other celebrations via their shared synergies.

On 3 March, the doors of Las Naves opened to the exhibition “Procés visual”, which shows the creative process of the urban artist Dulk. The exhibition, which can be visited until 13 May, pays special attention to the aspect of innovation that connects the world of the fallas and creativity with the digital world. To this end, 3D images of the fallas are projected, together with video-artistic projections on the creation process and a space for interaction open to all attendees.

Pyrotechnics enthusiasts have a date in Valencia on 5 and 12 March, on the eve of the “fiesta grande”. The experimental firework event “Pólvora a la vespra” returns, with the simultaneous holding by four Fallas Commissions of various innovative shows that are open to the public. On Saturday 5 March at 8 p.m. it will be the turn of the Falla Pintor Segrelles with the participation of the Pirotecnia Vulcano. An hour later, it will be time to go to the Falla Convento de Jerusalén-Matemático Marçal to contemplate the fireworks of the Pirotecnia Aitana. And that same night, from 11 p.m., the Pirotecnia Caballer FX will be entrusted with showing its art at the Falla Maestro Gozalbo-Conde de Altea. “Pólvora a la vespra” will conclude a week later, on Saturday 12 March at 8 p.m., again with the Pirotecnia Vulcano in the commission of the Falla Padre Jurel-Corona.

Valencia and Black Rock City, united by fire. At the other end of the world, a sculpture of a man in flames burns every August at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. At the conference “Burning Man: a living laboratory for civic design”, Stuart Mangrum – one of the organizers of the event – will reflect on the evolution of the project from an “anarchic temporary autonomous zone” to a fully-fledged city. The emerging metropolis of Black Rock City is today an urban planner’s dream: Since it is dismantled and removed every year, it has become a living laboratory for civic design, studied by experts from all round the world. The symposium will take place on 10 March at the CCCC.

The exhibition “Cremar el Disseny”, curated by Rafa Rivera, Ricardo Ruiz and the Colegio Territorial de Arquitectos de Valencia (CTAV), will establish a connection between design, Fallas and art and it will benefit from the participation of authors such as Ceballos&Sanabria, Pichiavo, Escif, Manolo Martín and Estudio Yinsen. The show, which will open its doors at the CTAV on 11 March at 6.30 p.m., will be accompanied by workshops and guided visits.

On Tuesday 15 March, during the “great week” itself, the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno will host the presentation of the exhibition “El llibret de falla: a cultural opportunity”, which can be visited until 15 April. The show will include historic llibrets, or booklets, which are fundamental to understanding the evolution of the Fallas to date, basically focusing on examples of excellent publishing, especially at an aesthetic level, and above all in recent years, when relevant progress has been made.  Thus, the presentation sets out to collect an oral and experience-based testimony of the ceremonial catharsis and neighbourhood revelries, placing the emphasis on what is usually the most faithful record of all that has taken place: the falla booklet. Furthermore, the inauguration event for this ephemeral library, and supported by the Fallas I+E Federation and World Design Capital Valencia 2022, will include the presentation of the new Falla Documentation Centre, a database currently being developed which will constitute a democratized vehicle for access to information on the most relevant fiesta literature in the falla booklets.

Prepared by the professor of Aesthetics and Theory of Art, essayist and art critic Román de la Calle. The different texts of the author, worked on during the Falla Castielfiabib-Marqués de San Juan llibrets of 2018, 2019 and 2020, have been brought together in a copy in the form of an academic essay on the festivity whose presentation will be accompanied by a round table in the which will discuss the innovative and experimental Fallas today.

Approach to design from the gender perspective

One of the ongoing debates in the design industry is focused on gender. Therefore, six influential women from the fields of design, creativity and communication will meet to celebrate International Women’s Day, with a conversation entitled “Just a coffee, please”, which will be premiered on 10 March on the YouTube channel of World Design Capital Valencia 2022. This meeting enjoys the participation of the fashion and lifestyle journalist Patricia Moreno; María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros, director of Prisa Audio; the multidisciplinary artist Yasmina Benabdelkrim; Puri Naya, communications director of Teika; Marisa Gallén, designer and partner of Gallén+Ibáñez and Sara Antolín, head of the Design in feminine section in World Design Capital Valencia 2022 and creator of the project This Was Made by a Woman.

From 28 March to 8 April, also in online format, the 26^th International Congress of the University Institute for Feminist and Gender Studies Purificación Escribano (IUEFGPE) will be held at the Jaume I University. The symposium “Gendering design. Feminist reflections” will attempt to tackle the gender-design relationship, offering a feminist reflection. At the same time, it will review the work of women designers from the beginning of industrialization to the present day, looking at their production and specifying, where applicable, their specific experiences.

Another female voice, that of Marusella Granell, will be heard at the CCCC on 30 March at 6 p.m. Her masterclass “Art and global aesthetics, design tool” arose from the idea of creating a space for reflection to discover and value other forms of creativity existing today in art, understanding the discourse of art as being parallel to design and a possible place for reflection in the light of the global questions of today’s world. Taking works completed in the present day as a starting point, this workshop intended for creative students and professionals from all fields will supply ideas and practical resources to present recent art history in a simple and accessible manner.

Design continues to conquer spaces such as the Botánico, the IVAM, the CCCC, Feria Valencia and the Palau de Valeriola

Within the setting of World Design Capital Valencia 2022, the IVAM hosts an itinerary along the Ruta del Bakalao via its posters from 3 March to 12 June. The exhibition “Graphic Route. Designing the sound of Valencia” x-rays one of the aspects least known by the general public with regard to the clubbing scene generated in the city in the eighties and nineties: posters and graphic design. Curated by Antonio J. Albertos, Alberto Haller and Moyu Santana, the itinerary includes 132 posters, 86 flyers and two documentary films that include personal interviews with different players linked to the design process (designers, artists, printers and cultural managers) together with a selection of paradigmatic posters and merchandising of the era.

On 4 March Cachetejack, a duo of illustrators based in Valencia formed by Nuria Bellver and Raquel Fanjul, inaugurated “Life Wins!”. The installation, produced by the Botanic Garden of the University of Valencia and World Design Capital Valencia 2022, can be visited until 9 October and forms part of the actions to disseminate the values of the New European Bauhaus promoted by the European Commission with a view to taking the Green Deal to the places we inhabit and promoting a sustainable, inclusive and beautiful future for all. Some twenty exuberant and colourful images emerge from among the trees and plants in a sensorial experience designed as a celebration of creative energy by way of a living museum in the city centre.

From 29 March to 1 April, on the occasion of the Fimma – Maderalia fair held at Feria Valencia, the installation “Tailor{H}otel by Estudi {H}ac” can be discovered. The project, designed and developed by the creative team of estudi{H}ac, led by the designer José Manuel Ferrero, will recreate different hotel rooms and will be divided into four ambiences where the effects of the textile patterns will be the source of inspiration to create a whole flexible system of horizontal and vertical surfaces produced with all kinds of materials.

Une of the main spaces of the design capital, the CCCC, will play host from 1 May to the exhibition “Why am I like this?”, organized and produced jointly by the Museum Consortium of the Valencian Community and World Design Capital Valencia 2022 with the support of the Provincial Council of Valencia. The designs on show form part of the Pérez de Albéniz-Bergasa collection and have been compiled and drawn by Juli Capella to explain how they work.

Throughout March, and until 29 May, it will also be possible to visit the exhibition “Through post-truth. Pepe Gimeno. Works 20-22”. Located at the Palau Joan de Valeriola, headquarters of the Chirivella Soriano Foundation, in the framework of the programme of activities of World Design Capital Valencia 2022, The exhibition presents the work of Pepe Gimeno, deriving from his experimentation with the laws of perception and abstraction and motivated by the dangers of post-truth for the common good. The monographic display will review the last few months of his long and prolific professional career as a curious designer and vocational artist through his most recent work, without forgetting his vocation for typographic design, one of his most recognized signs of identity.