- The spaces are: Escorxador and Reina 121, both in the Cabanyal-Canyamelar neighbourhood; Alquería Albors in the Orriols neighbourhood; Chalet de Abén Al Abbar, which is located in the Albors neighbourhood; and, finally, Nave 3 Ribes in the Russafa neighbourhood.
- Abén al Abbar and Alquería Albors will open their doors on Thursday 2 May, with a programme that will include regular activities and one-off performances.
- On Friday 3 May at the Escorxador there will be a concert by Cristina Blasco, an exhibition on the rehabilitation process of the building and recycling workshops.
From May, València will have five new cultural centres available to the public, ‘with which the cultural offer and the socio-cultural dynamisation of the neighbourhoods will be increased’, as explained by the councillor for Cultural Action, Heritage and Cultural Resources, José Luis Moreno.
The new spaces, which already existed and which have been provided with resources and management to offer a cultural proposal, are: Escorxador between the streets Sant Pere 35-37 and Lluís Despuig 22 and Reina 121 between the streets Reina 121 and Barraca 124, both centres in the Cabanyal-Canyamelar neighbourhood; Alquería Albors, located in Camí Alquería de Albors nº4, in the Orriols neighbourhood; Chalet de Abén Al Abbar, which is located in calle Abén Al-Abbar 7, in Albors neighbourhood; and, finally, Nave 3 Ribes, within the Parc Central, in the Russafa neighbourhood.
Moreno has assured that ‘the materialisation of this important project for the creation of a network of local cultural centres has been the result of a long process of prior work to refurbish the buildings, which, due to their heritage interest, have been coordinated by the Historical Heritage Service of Valencia City Council; this has been accompanied by parallel work to study and diagnose the cultural needs to be met, and meticulous planning management’.
The process has led to the administrative tendering of a macro-contract, as a result of which three companies have been awarded the contract to manage the cultural programming and the citizen services of each of the centres.
Thus, the company Salzillo Servicios Integrales, SLU will manage the Escorxador and Nave 3 Ribes centres; the company Proges XXI, SL, will be in charge of the cultural dynamisation of the Reina 121 centre and the company Amundsen Estrategia y Comunicación, SL will do the same in Alquería Albors and Chalet de Abén Al Abbar.
The contracts, which were awarded in March for 274,066.78 euros for the Reina 121, Alquería Albors and Chalet de Abén Al Abbar cultural centres, 278,844.50 euros for the Escorxador centre and 285,475.30 euros for the Nave 3 space in Ribes, will have an initial duration of two years.
The amount awarded includes not only the expenses derived from the specialised management of the cultural services and the staff that will attend the centres, but also the economic items that will be used to finance the cultural programmes offered to the public, which in all cases will be free of charge and open to the public.
The City Council of Valencia itself, through the Department of Cultural Action, Heritage and Cultural Resources, will supervise and coordinate the activity of each centre. The people in charge of these new spaces are Isabel Caballero, in the Escorxador centre; Olga Álvarez, in the Reina 121 cultural centre; Pau Gómez, in Alquería d’Albors; Jordi Llobregat in the Chalet de Abén Al-Abbar and Miguel Ángel Jordán in the Nave 3 de Ribes, located in the Central Park.
Abén al Abbar and Alquería Albors Centres
Both spaces, which will open their doors on Thursday 2 May, are committed to a programme that will include regular activities that will be repeated weekly, long-running activities and one-off performances.
The Abén Al-Abbar cultural centre will offer, on the first two weekends, welcome days (Friday 3, Saturday 4, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12) with family activities including storytelling, building a wishing tree and the neighbourhood art activity. In addition, the centre will host the Valencia Negra festival, which will include two activities (a literary creation masterclass and a murder party).
On Tuesdays there will be games afternoons, Thursday mornings will be dedicated to workshops for seniors, which will be repeated weekly. In the afternoon, on the same Thursday, there will be a language tandem. There will also be time for reading clubs. On Friday afternoons there will also be performances, both improvised (open mic) and by interesting artists (music, magic, etc.).
In addition to all this, there will be long-running activities, such as Libros de barrio (a library made up of books that you can take home on condition that you leave another one) and the mailbox ¿Qué quieres hacer?, where users request the types of activities they want to do.
For its part, the Alquería Albors cultural centre will also offer welcome days (Saturday 4, Sunday 5, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12) where there will be family activities for a wide public, similar to those that will take place in the other centre. On the rest of the days of the week, the same activities will take place as in the Abén al Abbar centre. In addition, it will collaborate with the association Valencia Acoge, which this month starts a series of activities, and, in the same way, the collaboration with the Josep María Bayarri library will begin, hosting storytelling and magic activities.
Programme at the Escorxador
May will be the month dedicated to Flor de Mayo by Vicente Blasco Ibañez because of the relationship between the novel and the Cabanyal neighbourhood and its customs. The Escorxador cultural centre will offer a reading club of the novel and a theatre creation workshop given by Eva Zapico taking the novel as a starting point.
There will also be a concert by Cristina Blasco in trio format on 3 May, an exhibition on the rehabilitation process of the building and recycling workshops for the whole family.
Reina 121 Cultural Centre
This centre will be exhibiting the photographic exhibition ‘Ones de llum que vetllen’ by Rogelio Sarmiento Carrera, about the women of Cabanyal during the cultural festival of the Semana Santa Marinera.
As a result of the collaboration with the Teatro La Estrella, the workshop ‘Jugant al teatre’ (Playing at the theatre) was proposed for families. For its part, Vudú Teatro, with its ‘Gabinete Poético’ (Poetic Cabinet), presents a show of poetry, shadow theatre, music and improvisation.
For their part, the creative theatre company Versonautas will present ‘Sononautas’, a participatory workshop to bring music to the youngest audiences through play, culminating in a small educational concert. And Esther, a Valencian singer, will inaugurate ‘Los Acústicos de la Reina 121’ with a concert.
A laboratory of community culture
La Nave 3 Ribes is presented as a space for cultural participation and a laboratory of community culture. Its activity will focus, on the one hand, on providing spaces and technical advice to the cultural projects that already exist around the Central Park. It will also maintain in its spaces part of the programme of Escalante Centre Teatral, a gold medal winner of the Spanish Academy of Performing Arts.
During the months of May and June, several intergenerational workshops and mapping tables will be held in the street. The results will come together in a participatory exhibition ‘Collective Cartographies’, a database and an online map available to all citizens.