The large-format portraits were in the central square of the Peña de Francia church. Before they had passed through public spaces of Buenavista del Norte and La Orotava. Nobody expected an attack that has generated “a deep rejection” and that the mayor, Marco González (PSOE), has described it as “a hate crime.”
The exhibition, made up of close-up portraits of different migrants from the Las Raices provisional camp, in the municipality of La Laguna, invites a reflection on migration phenomena and on the rights of people who travel to other countries to seek a better future. The photographs are of Sosa light and the texts, which present each of these life stories, have been written by Paula Fernandez Hernandez.
Sosa light Yesterday she was “shocked” by what she described as “a horrible act, which goes beyond vandalism and becomes a xenophobic and racist action.” An attack that, in his opinion, “was done very conscientiously and in a very ugly way, since the cut coincides in many cases with the neck of these people, who now appear as having their throats cut. Seeing this picture makes you want to cry and, at the same time, it reaffirms the need to work even more for tolerance in a society that is still capable of generating this type of action.
“It is a horrible act, which goes beyond vandalism and becomes a xenophobic and racist action”
«The social response of rejection has been unanimous and we hope that this unpleasant situation will also help us to talk even more about immigration and raise awareness among the people, ”says Sosa. After the initial impact, the authors, the organization of Periplo and the Portuense City Council agreed to hold a public act to repair the images. Many people came to the square to post messages of support and respect, and collaborate in the symbolic repair of these damages caused to close-up portraits, almost two meters high, that place the viewer face to face with people, with names and surnames, who “suffer to try to fulfill their dreams.”
The Culture area, organizer of the Periplo Festival, and the authors of The roots, agreed to keep the exhibition attacked in the street as a “vindication of a struggle and of an awareness-raising work that is more justified than ever and that has to continue in the search for a tolerant, supportive and open society, as it has always been in the past. over the centuries that of Cross port».
The mayor of Porto described this act as “a savage” and he insisted on turning it around to “raise awareness and continue working against racism and xenophobia, at times when human miseries are exacerbated.” It also announced the opening of an investigation to try to discover the author or authors of “this hate crime.” The island president, Pedro Martín (PSOE), also took advantage of his visit yesterday morning to the tourist city to highlight “the cosmopolitan and tolerant character of Puerto de la Cruz, which no barbarity at dawn will be able to change.”
