From 3 to 10 September, the Arrecife neighbourhood of Argana Baja will host a new edition of Festival Desidia, built around the III Circuito de Murales and the project El aljibe. Memoria subterránea. The project is supported by the Culture Department of the Cabildo de Lanzarote y La Graciosa, as well as the Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo (CACT) and Arrecife Town Council.
Five artists from different backgrounds will transform the walls of the neighbourhood through live artistic interventions. Cristina Reyes (Canary Islands), Keeenue (Japan), Luismi Sánchez (Venezuela-Canary Islands), NULO (Uruguay) and JUIN (Canary Islands) make up the line-up for this third edition, curated by Elena García of Espacio Lapanera (Tenerife).
El aljibe. Memoria subterránea takes as its starting point Lanzarote's historical relationship with water and with structures such as aljibes and maretas (traditional cisterns and rainwater reservoirs), turning them into a metaphor for what lies beneath the surface. Building on this idea, the festival sets out to explore collective memory, diverse identities and experiences that have not always had a visible place.
El aljibe. Memoria subterránea
The III Circuito de Murales uses Lanzarote's subsoil and its old water storage systems as a common thread to bring to the surface, on the walls of Argana Baja, what remains in the shadows. The interventions are not conceived merely as urban decoration, but as spaces for expressing neighbourhood identities, experiences and forms of resistance.
Curated by Elena García, the five participating artists will carry this reflection into public space from different visual languages and worlds, once again turning Argana Baja into a meeting point between contemporary creation, territory and community.
Workshops, reflection and neighbourhood walks
The programme opens on Thursday 3 September in the Sala Buñuel at CIC El Almacén with the talk Patrimonio material e inmaterial: Pintura Urbana en Canarias, given by Paula Calavera. On Friday 4, Feo Flip will lead the graffiti workshop Iniciación al aerosol at the CSC Argana Baja, while on Saturday 5 Iván T. will run Del boceto al muro, focused on the mural creation process, in the same venue. On Wednesday 9 it is the turn of Ars Magna and the Asociación Tinguafaya with the workshop Introducción al mural.
On Thursday 10 September, Elena García will lead a guided tour of the festival's interventions in Argana Baja. The programme will then close in the Sala Cubo at El Almacén with the round table Patrimonio Arquitectónico y Arte Urbano en Canarias, featuring Marta González, Paula Calavera and Elena García.
The full programme, times and all information about the activities are available through Festival Desidia's official channels and at desidiamural.org.