Art Exhibit and Festival See off Earth Week in Buenos Aires
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 04.28.08
(Picture: one of the art pieces at the exhibit. National pride, by Angles Alvarez Colombo.) In the first year Earth Day (April 22) has gained some notice in Argentina, late celebrations continued during the weekend in the country’s capital. On Friday, an exhibition focusing on artists who work with environmental and social issues opened at La Europea, a design house in Palermo neighborhood. On Saturday, the Buenos Aires Earth Day Festival had its first edition, gathering musicians and NGOs at the United Nations park, in fancy Recoleta neighborhood.
Even though the events weren’t massive, they are indicators of a growing interest by people in environmental issues. Argentina has been way behind in the ‘green wave’ trend that has reached massive status in the US, but seems to be catching up, with the word ‘verde’ (Spanish for ‘green’) starting to become popular, celebrities jumping in, and new websites and organizations focusing on a modern focus on ecology.
The art exhibition was organized by Marca Futuro, a company focused on design innovation. After having created a ‘house of the future’ concept, the brand is now focusing on coming up with a sustainable house model to show people how to make their homes more environmental friendly.
Apart from the exhibit, the company has come up with a blog and a five-step ‘program’ to implement at home and at the office. Even though this might seem basic and even old in the States, the sources for this type of content in Spanish in Argentina are scarce and even inexistent.
Artists involved in the exhibit summed up 44, including plastic artists and designers. One of them was Reciclarte, a group of Argentine artists that work with trash as a material and with social and environmental conscience as theme for their pieces.
Night at the dumpster, picture by David Acevedo, from Reciclarte.
Sculpture by Alejandro Curtto, from Reciclarte.
The Buenos Aires Earth Day Festival was organized by Butterfly Comunicación Ambiental (Butterfly Environmental Communications), a new firm focused in gathering people, NGOs and companies to communicate issues associated to the environment through events that can reach a broader audience.
One more time, a business idea that might seem old for people in the US but that has almost no expressions in Argentina.
BCA has partnered with the Earth Day Network and will be in charge of the annual celebrations of Earth Day in the country. Its first attempt was a festival that gathered several well-known musicians in an open air event at the United Nations park (if you’ve been to Buenos Aires, that’s where the Floralis Generica lies).
According to the organizers, more than six thousand people passed by the event during the whole day (it began at 3pm and lasted until 4am).
Some pics of the festival at early hours:
With these two happenings, Buenos Aires saw off Earth Week, but said hello to new people that are jumping on the green wagon. Of course, that’s nothing but good news.
Sites of the events’ organizers (all in Spanish):
::Marca Futuro ::Verde es Bueno (Marca Futuro’s green blog) ::BCA ::Earth Day Festival Buenos Aires
Damn! I left Buenos Aires on Saturday night after visiting for eight nights, nine days. Had a great time. I thought about emailing you before going but didn't. Now I wish I had. I was carrying around my solar backpack with a Solar IS Civil Defense button on it. The only person who commented was a craftsperson at Saturday's Recoleta craft market who thought it was a cell phone and warned me to be careful that somebody didn't steal it.
Had a great time in your great city. Would have been nice to make a connection. Did walk through the Design Center, again in Recoleta, but didn't see much eco stuff and absolutely no solar (except for maybe the flower sculpture) anywhere.
Well, as green is not yet very popular you still have to digg to find things like this, you should've written to me! :)
I guess the thing that's most advanced here reg. these subjects is repurposing and recycling, solar is still very far away. Once I spoke to an architect who said she had tried to promote solar in buildings but that it was just too expensive and the equipments she could get on national level didn't have enough quality. This was about a year ago, maybe that's changed...
Glad you enjoyed our city!
cheers, P