At 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, the fourth edition of Verbena, one of the most unique events on the Canarian and national cultural scene, began. Its program, which will take place over several weeks in the El Almacén cultural space, combines literature, critical thinking, plastic arts, music and workshops, turning this enclave into the epicenter of literary debate in Lanzarote.
The writer and illustrator Lana Corujo, author of the recent editorial success Han cantado bingo, directs this edition. During the inauguration, she pointed out that "working and articulating an event within El Almacén not only implies the illusion of doing it in an iconic space, but also the will to look at the present to talk about the world today."
The opening of the festival was starred by the exhibition The shapes of the nests, by the visual artist Ico Mosquera. Born in 1997 in Pradera, Valle del Cauca (Colombia), Mosquera arrived in Lanzarote with just three years old. Trained in the specialty of engraving at the Pancho Lasso Art School, he is currently developing his artistic career between Madrid and Lanzarote.
This exhibition, his first individual exhibition, is presented in the La Salita room, and constitutes a poetic reflection on simplicity as a symbolic response to the complexity of contemporary realities. Through a series of objects built by himself, the artist resignifies the everyday, projecting an aesthetic that refers to archetypes of simple life. The exhibition space is thus transformed into the vestige of an invented memory, populated by hybrid entities - halfway between animal and human - that appeal to a primeval condition of being, although its intention is not nostalgic, but interrogative: what place do we occupy today as a species?
During the opening ceremony, Mosquera especially thanked the work of the assembly technician Daniel Fleitas, responsible for the spatial adaptation of the exhibition. Representing the Cabildo of Lanzarote, the Culture technician José Ramón Betancort Mesa spoke, who thanked the presence of the public and valued the importance of meetings such as Verbena for the cultural ecosystem of the island.
The exhibition can be visited until July 12, 2025.
The complete program of Verbena, whose central dates will take place on June 18, 19, 27 and 28, can be consulted on the Cultura Lanzarote website, in the official agenda of the Cabildo and in the profile of Instagram of the festival.