The plan is yet to be determined, but everything indicates that between May 20 and June 14, Madrid will become an Andalusian substitute: Madrilucia. An April Fair without albero and with artificial grass that aims to bring together some 800,000 people at the Iberdrola Music venue in the Villaverde district (or in the Rock City of Arganda del Rey, according to the organization now considering) to simulate the Sevillian celebration. While some point out cultural appropriation, its promoters defend that “the project does not seek to reproduce clichés, but rather to value a tradition.” But can such an event, with its idiosyncrasies, be replicated?
In the exhibition by the American photographer Joel Meyerowitz that was held last summer at the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa (Madrid) and previously at the Picasso Museum in Málaga, one could see how during the months he spent in the town of Malaga between 1966 and 1967, his photographs captured ephemeral moments, local characters and streets of a city that was not idyllic, but whose people were part of a network of experiences and common spaces. Seeing them, it was inevitable to think that that thing no longer exists or perhaps will exist again.
