La Laguna recently has two new sculptures in its public spaces that enrich the cultural heritage of the municipality and with which it also wants to recover and dignify the memory of its Guanche population. Two proposals promoted by the Historical Heritage area of the City Council during the term that has just ended, with former councilor Elvira Jorge at the helm, which were recently installed, one in the Alto-El Rocío Health area and another in Punta del Hidalgo, and that could not be officially inaugurated as it coincided with the electoral period.
Specifically, at the end of March, a sculpture representing a Guanche woman carrying her son in her arms, the work of Francisco Hernández, was installed in the peri-urban park of El Rocío. Its height is about three meters and at the base it has a pyramid that winks at the pintaderas, all made of polyester resin with a bronze-effect patina.
It has been located precisely at this point to remember that the Guanches inhabited and buried honoring their dead in the Santos ravine, where the archaeological site of El Becerril that Cusco discovered is located just at the height of the Salud Alto and El Rocío neighborhoods. , and where at the time the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands carried out vertical surveys in five caves and pre-Hispanic aboriginal human skeletal remains were found in all of them, as explained by the municipal Historical Heritage area in the previous mandate.
Meanwhile, the second sculpture, installed at the beginning of last April, honors the achimencey Zebenzui and is located in Punta del Hidalgo, where in the past there was another in his honor, since the coastal town owes its name to this achimencey, who owned the lordship of Punta del Hidalgo. However, in the 1970s, it was vandalized and ended up disappearing. Together with residents of the area, the Zebenzui Pro Guanche Platform and a historian, it was agreed to restore this sculpture due to the historical importance of the character for this coastal town, as well as that the sculptor be a local artist, selecting Ibrahim Hernández, upon request. of the associations themselves.
Specifically, the sculpture is located in the square located next to the Altagay hotel and is around 1.70 meters high, with a raised pedestal, and was made of polyester resin with a bronze-effect patina.
laundresses and boats
But these have not been the only sculptures that were promoted from the City Council during the recently completed mandate. It should be remembered that another one was inaugurated in May 2021, also modeled by Ibrahim Hernández, to distinguish the work of the old washerwomen of the municipality, and that it is located in the old Tanque Grande laundry rooms, on the Las Peras road, where they used to go. these women in the past.
In addition, the local Government Board approved, last May, just at the end of the previous term, the credit file for the realization of a sculptural group that will honor the boat races of Valle Jiménez and Valle Tabares, thus responding to an initiative raised by the residents of the area themselves and collected in a motion that the Plenary approved in July 2022, and whose cost will be covered by the Culture area. Once the incorporation of the credit is approved, the commission will be made to the sculptor, through a negotiated procedure without publicity for artistic exclusivity, which has already been published.
The sculptural ensemble will be made with approximate dimensions to life size, represented by two oxen or cows in a running attitude, pulling the boat, with a person in the front guiding the animals. It will be made of polyester resin, with metallic structures and an antique bronze effect patination.
