April 9, 2023, 9:35 PM
April 9, 2023, 9:35 PM
The international network Telemundo and the Los Angeles Times, from the United States, highlighted the sand sculptures by 250 artists Bolivians and foreigners in Oruro, during Holy Week.
“The town of Oruro was the scene of this show in which more than 200 artists They staged these scenes taken from Biblical texts. In this festival, the creators work at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet,” says the Telemundo publication.
While the Los Angeles Times notes that, “For a few hours, the Via Crucis of Christ came to life in monumental sand sculptures in a mining town in southwestern Bolivia. They will remain there as long as the icy wind of the Bolivian altiplano allows it and until at dawn on Saturday, in an annual festival for Holy Week that is celebrated in the dunes of Oruro, they are definitively erased.”.
This year, 250 artists from Bolivia, Peru and Argentina have worked on 25 sculptures, most of religious themes, in the sands of Cochiraya (Ouro).
On Friday afternoon, the space was opened to the public and brought together hundreds of attendees. Faith and art move these sand craftsmen who have been shaping the figures since early Friday morning until the harsh sun of the altiplano appeared, compacting sand with water and sculpting past noon.
The work began in the early hours of Friday under low temperatures, says the Peruvian artist Juan Chalco. “It is not only a spiritual meeting, we also develop concepts and reflections. Art is not only spirituality, it transcends the social. We make culture and art has no borders”, added Chalco, who represented the University of El Cusco, Peru.
The meeting has been taking place for 17 years in that city and also aims to raise awareness about the care of natural spaces, stressed the sculptor Juan Chacón, from Grupo Arte Diez, organizer of the festival.
