Boluda Lines donated a container transformed into La Playa, a space to screen an audiovisual about Nazaret, “What is it like living without the sea?” created by the photographer Eva Máñez
Boluda Corporación Marítima has collaborated with the cultural activities programmed for the 4th annual Intramurs Valencian art festival held from 23 to 30 October in the historic centre of the city. The company’s shipping line Boluda Lines provided a 20-foot container that served to house a cultural space dedicated to Nazaret beach. The container was turned into a television room to screen the video “What is it like living without the sea?”.
As part of their corporate social responsibility program, Boluda Corporación Marítima supports this type of event as an initiative to back non-profit associations and non-governmental organisations.
What is it like living without the sea? This question was put to forty residents of the Nazaret neighbourhood in the project La Playa, an urban installation, which used a Boluda Lines container equipped with twelve chairs as a symbolic port in the heart of the Carmen neighbourhood, in the Músico López Chávarri square.
The work’s author is photographer Eva Máñez, who for three months recorded testimonies from local people from the district explaining how they feel about the absence of the beach (lost to port expansion 30 years ago). “Some recount their memories of the beach, while others focus on the present, on the problems they have today and on coexistence,” she said.
“As Nazaret is far away, it tends to be forgotten and nobody goes there, so I wanted to bring it to the historic centre of the city, giving people the opportunity to reflect on Valencia’s seafront, and also on the use of public space, through the Intramurs festival.”
The screening was very popular, forming one of the main attractions of the festival. At midday Saturday 28 October as a centrepiece for the video, a debate was organised between different representatives from the city (Nazaret locals, journalists, politicians, etc.) to discuss issues related to the neighbourhood and the seafront.
About the festival
Intramurs is an urban festival with the streets as a setting, where the audience also forms part of and shapes the art: design, window dressing, gastronomy, performances, musical events, dance, poetry readings and urban interventions. Traditional spaces such as galleries, bars and other spaces also took part in the cultural event. A number of parallel activities such as seminars, children’s and family activities, video screenings, guided tours and opened up local artist studios completed the full program. Intramurs was created to provide the artists’ community with a response to the major cultural transformation of recent years.
