Exhibition “Imagining La Florida”

During the second semester of 2013 and along 2014 Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), a state society devoted to empower and promote the Spanish heritage and culture around the world, will offer an extensive program of activities- exhibitions, concerts, book recognition acts and initiatives to promote the mobility of professionals and creators – on the occasion of Juan Ponce de León’s arrival in 1513 to Florida.
Exhibitions
Imagining La Florida. Juan Ponce de León and the search of the eternal youth is the exhibition with which AC/E opens this program as of May 30^th. This display is curated by Michael J. Francis, and will be open until August 17^th 2013 at the Freedom Tower inMiami. It will show visitors a new perspective of Florida since Ponce de León’s expedition in 1513 until the creation of Fort Mose in 1739. Its purpose is to highlight the relevance of Spain, unknown for many Spanish and North American citizens, in the colonial past of this State.
The Cultural Centre of Spain in Miami will hold the touring of two exhibitions produced by AC/E. During August, and after its travelling throughout Spain and Latin America, A tres bandas. Mestizaje, sincretismo e hibridación en el espacio sonoro Iberoamericano (s. XVI-XX) will open offering a visual and sound image of the native American, Hispanic and African cultural roots of American music, presenting audiovisual material and instruments of the three cultures and their mixed varieties. The exhibition is curated by Albert Recasens and will be open to the public since August 22^nd toOctober 27^th 2013.
This is not a museum. Portable and Lurking is the second exhibition and will be held at the Cultural Centre of Spain in 2014, produced by AC/E along with AcVic (Centre d’Arts Contemporànies) and curated by Martín Perán. This display has already been seen in Spain(Vic), Slovenia (Ljubljana), USA (Washington) and currently in México (México D.F.). It has been designed as an exercise for documentation and reflection about the building of mobile artifacts as elements for an expanded conception of a museum or as an alternative for them.
Also, in November The Moore Building in Miami will host until December 2013 the exhibition Tapas. Spanish Design for Food,curated by Juli Capella. Organized and produced by AC/E, it shows how design and food have always been interrelated; how the discipline of design has carefully worked in finding solutions to the problems aroused by gastronomy and, particularly, how the Spanish culture has contributed along its history with inventions and clever solutions to these problems, an area where Spain has always stand out.
Book recognition
AC/E will give a special recognition to books and words in Miamiby organizing two activities, between the 17^th and the 24^th of November, among the activities of the 30^th Edition of the Miami International Book Fair, the most important in theUnited States. This year the invited countrySpain and AC/E has organized, along with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of the Spanish government, the exhibit project Reading in Posters that highlights the important work done inSpain for the promotion and support of the literary activity and the development of reading. This exhibition shows some of the more emblematic posters produced in our country, designs made by prestigious illustrators, graphic humorists and artists. The second activity, From the letter to the book, is a project intended to put books, words and people into relation, empowering the knowledge of our culture by spreading the language and writing in Spanish, making citizens participate and encouraging at the same time popular expressions. This design is composed of three interventions of great visual impact and an interactive spirit: Hello world!, a relevant site in the city will hold 70 letters 2 meters tall, full of helium, with which people will be able to make up words in Spanish (or in other languages to be translated into Spanish); the second activity, The world, a giant poem, is a composition of a giant poem, 150 meters long, in another relevant site of the city. The writing will be done during on whole day, collectively and will allow the activity to be done simultaneously in different cities. The third and last activity, Book cities, is conceived for citizens to participate writing all sorts of texts in urban spaces, converting the streets into pages of a huge book.
Concerts
AC/E has also wanted to fit the music into this celebration with a first concert at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine in Florida, where “Folía”, leaded by its director Pedro Bonet and the soprano Celia Alcedo, will perfom, on July 9^th, The Bímini Fountains. Music around the discovery, exploration and colonization of earlyNorth America. The selection of musical pieces has a direct relation with the early history of the United States of North America, both in the Hispanic influence as well as the related to the presence of other nations like France, England and the United States themselves after their independence of the first colonies. This concert will be performed again on July 11th at The Historic New Orleans Collection, inNew Orleans. The International Festival of Hispanic Theatre, on the 13th – 14th of the same month, will hold the third and fourth performances.
PICE. Supporting the internationalization of our artists.
One of AC/E’s working lines is helping the Spanish cultural sector and supporting its internationalization through PICE (Program for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture – by its initials in Spanish) that started out in March 2013 and is based in two main columns: the Visitants Program and the Mobility Program. Following these guidelines AC/E will perform specific actions with cultural organizations and institutions, between September and December 2013, in order to help curators, managers and/or programmers of the State of Florida get to know our artists and curators. Along with this idea they will hold a Residence Program for Spanish Artists and Curators at the Miami ArtCenter / South Florida.