Periplus, the International Festival of Travel and Adventure Literature of Puerto de la Cruz, yesterday expressed his deepest rejection of the acts of hatred suffered by the exhibition Las Raices during the early hours of yesterday. This outdoor exhibition project is dedicated to migrants and features photographs by Luz Sosa Contreras and texts by Paula Fernández Hernández. Previously, this sample could be seen in the municipalities of Buenavista del Norte and La Orotava.
Since last Monday, the festival presents these images in the square of the church of Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia in the tourist city. However, in the early hours of yesterday, as they say, the images were torn, many of them at the neck of the faces of migrants that they reproduce. The Culture Area of the Puerto de la Cruz City Council, organizer of the Periplo Festival, and the authors of the exhibition have agreed to keep it on the street “as a vindication of a struggle and a work of awareness that is more justified than ever and that has to continue in the search for a tolerant, supportive and open society ”as the municipality has always been.
“This type of hateful acts -they emphasize- require redoubled efforts so that society recovers spaces for dialogue and reflection in the face of a reality as harsh as migration is for so many people in the world and where the Canary Islands play a leading role which has to be the of fostering, understanding and solidarity, demanding that the public powers respect the human rights of these people ”.
The authors of the exhibition yesterday accompanied schoolchildren on a guided visit to the exhibition, explaining with names and surnames the lives of each of these migrant people who star in it. Similarly, the City Council and the citizen platform Co-Mando Periplo convened in the afternoon a rally on the stage of the show itself, as a sign of rejection of this type of hateful act and in support of those responsible for the exhibition. During this meeting, in addition to reading a manifesto, the participants participated in the repair of the damaged canvases.
The sample is made up of close-up portraits of migrants when they were in the provisional camp of Las Raices (La Laguna). With it, they are invited to reflect on migration and the rights of these people to travel to other countries to seek a better future.
