lunes, 19 de enero de 2009
2009. Nuevas y buenas intenciones para el año.
martes, 19 de febrero de 2008
Un paseo por Plasencia el Domingo pasado
A short walk from the plaza de toros is el parque de los pinos ("the park of the pine trees") where we took the photo of the peacock, or pavo real in Spanish.
sábado, 9 de febrero de 2008
Los Molinos del Alagón
This post isn´t related to any Acuarex project in particular. However, this is a blog about art & culture in Extremadura so our visit to "the Mills of Alagón" on Saturday 2 February fits into the general theme here. It was a slow weekend since most of our friends were out of town taking advantage of a long holiday weekend. Friday afternoon I pulled a book down from one of our bookshelves entitled "Senderos Del Valle Del Alagón" which has lots of information on short day hikes in the nearby Alagón Valley. I found a very "Lola-friendly" 3 hour hike that was described as having "Dificultad: baja" or "Dificulty: low". Saturday morning we packed some sandwiches & set off for the village of Casillas de Coria where the walk starts & ends.
Upon arrival in Casillas we were surrounded by a small crowd of locals that were quite surprised to see a couple of tourists. Lola asked them if they knew where we could find the old "camino del Potro" or "el camino de Portaje" as the walk was called in our book. We received nothing but blank stares. Then a little old leather-faced woman about 3 and a half feet tall stepped out of her house & declared that she knew what we were talking about. She set us in the right direction & as we headed off towards our destination we occasionally turned around to have a look at a rather comical sight: half the village was following us to make sure we didn´t take any wrong turns as we twisted & turned our way through the heart of the grimy old town center.
Eventually, all the villagers turned back leaving us to our own navigational devices. This was not good because we immediately took a fork in the dirt road (the wrong fork it turns out...) & promptly got lost. We wandered across some private land for about an hour & had a rather unsettling experience with a temperamental cow. But then we backtracked a bit & picked up the proper trail with no trouble at all.
Before long we reached the río Alagón & the first of 3 ruined mills along the banks of the river. There were a few old men fishing & a shepherd high up on the hilltop leading a noisy herd of goats in search of fresh grass. Up on the hill behind the first mill, or the "Aceña del Olivar," is the abandoned miller´s house which somebody decorated with the following poem:
Un Alagón de Septiembre/Marcha sin prisas de río
El paisaje que recorre/Le cansa de ser bonito.
Unas muchachas lavando/En su cauce entre dormido
Sueñan con sueños de novio/allí dentro en el molino
Las piedras van arrancando/Blancuras al buen trigo.
Todo es calma y armonía/Escenario incomparable...
The second mill offered more excitement. The four walls of the mill were still intact but the roof was long gone. And, like many of the local historical sites, there were no warning signs posted or ropes cordoning off the mill from the public despite the fact that the structure looked as if it might possibly collapse at any moment without warning. ¡Viva Extremadura!
We didn´t reach the third mill as the sandwiches, which we had stupidly left in the car back in the village, were calling us. So now we have a good reason to return for another visit. Maybe in spring when the wildflowers are in full bloom...
-Kris
lunes, 28 de enero de 2008
Inauguration of the Royal Drove Road Photo Exhibition
On Thursday 24 January we held the official opening in Plasencia of our photo/text exhibition concerning my 8 day/255 km walk across Extremadura.
domingo, 20 de enero de 2008
Mail Art Call: Visions of the Future
Deadline/ fecha limite: 1 July/Julio 2008
Please send us your handmade creations (any medium) containing your "Vision(s) of the Future". All works received will be exhibited in public. Following the exhibition all works received will be buried in a time capsule in our town with instructions to open the capsule in 100 years! Documentation will be sent to all participants. Thanks & see you all in the post!
Por favor, envíanos tu aportación (formato libre) con el tema "visiones del futuro". Todas las aportaciones recibidas se expondran al publico. Después de la exposición las aportaciones se enterraran en una capsula del tiempo en nuestra ciudad con instrucciones de ser abierta dentro de cien años! Se enviara documentación a todos los participantes. Gracias & nos vemos en correos!
Jarramplas festival in Piornal
There was a rather hectic moment at 4 pm when Jarramplas, after making his way through half the streets of the village, arrived at the church. I got swept up in the crowd & was shoved inside the main entrance. A moment later the doors were slammed shut & Jarramplas, just outside the door, was cornered & people mercilessly pounded him with turnips. The sound of the wooden church doors, as hundreds of turnips hit them, was deafening from inside the church. A few moments later the doors were opened & Jarramplas entered the church surrounded by villagers applauding him for withstanding the force of all those turnips. Then the people began singing. As traditional songs filled the church, people began carrying a wooden sculpture of San Sebastian through the aisles.
Shortly after the singing ended, the people rather excitedly filed out of the church & swarmed the square outside, again armed with more turnips (14,000 kilos of turnips were imported to Piornal for the festival, by the way). As everybody waited for Jarramplas to exit, so the madness could commence once again, a small tractor arrived with another load of turnips. The driver dumped a small mountain of them next to the fountain as people scrambled to arm themselves with the biggest turnips they could find. Jarramplas finally exited, banging on his drum, & the air was once again filled with flying turnips. People began running in all directions & I lost sight of Lola for a few minutes. (I found her crouched behind a phone booth which was covered in strips of plywood to keep the glass doors from being smashed by turnips).
We wandered off for a bit to get a break from the constant ducking & dodging & stress of wondering when, not if, we were going to get clobbered by a melon-sized turnip. As the sun began to disappear over the horizon, we took a stroll through the local Jarramplas museum (which is equipped with a bar downstairs that, at that moment, was full of drunken, singing villagers). Afterwards we got in the car, which survived the entire day without any turnip damage. Then we braved the dark, treacherous, winding mountain roads back down to the valley floor & then home.
-Kris
miércoles, 16 de enero de 2008
Caminando la Cañada Real en Extremadura
Esta exposición consta de 62 fotografías y texto bilingüe (español e inglés) tomadas en el transcurso de un viaje a pie desde Abadía hasta Olivenza.
Este proyecto ha sido realizado desde ACUAREX, por Kristoffer Mininger, Lola Lucio y Antonio Aparicio, gracias a la Concejalía de Educación y Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Plasencia y a la Consejería de Cultura y Turismo.