¡Bienvenidos!

Hello! & welcome to the very first post on the ACUAREX (Association for Culture & Art in Extremadura) blogspot. We´ve had this blog since September 2007. It´s 2008 already & we still haven´t posted anything here. It appears that I (Kris from the USA) will be writing here in English. My partner (Lola from Extremadura, SPAIN) will be writing here in Spanish. (Small tangent, or "the answer to a frequently asked question": Lola & I met in Poland, fell in love working together on an organic farm in Ireland and for the past 5 years have been living in western Spain.)

(The photo above, by the way, is of Lola´s aunt, Pilar. It was taken by me & was used in our book entitled Faces of Plasencia/Caras de Plasencia.)

I suppose the first thing I should mention here is the idea behind ACUAREX (which in Spanish stands for "la Asociación para la CUltura y el ARte en EXtremadura). Back in 2004 we sat down with a handful of friends & decided to put together this little organization. We are always working on little projects & ideas. The problem is finding the money to pay for all of these half-baked schemes (so to speak). Now, with the organization in place, we propose our ideas to the local council & to the Consejería of culture & tourism in Mérida every year. And, much to our surprise, they fund some of the projects!

Projects we´ve successfully completed to date include:

-Publishing a book entitled Faces of Plasencia/ Caras de Plasencia

-2 mail art projects/exhibitions: Borders/Fronteras & The Measure of.../El tamaño de...

-A photo exhibition entitled Walking the Royal Drove Road in Extremadura/Caminando La Cañada Real en Extremadura

-A mail art & fanzine workshop & exhibition during the Encuentros del Arte festival in Santos de Maimona (Extremadura) in autumn 2006.

-A night of free exchange or "bartering" of 2ndhand objects/Una noche de trueque

...and there are tons of ideas & projects in the works so stay tuned. -Kris