The first edition of COLOR Week introduces the COLOR project to citizens
The event included over 40 activities, including conferences, concerts, family workshops and interventions in the public space
The first edition of COLOR Week closed on Sunday, an event that arose from the heart of the COLOR project, whose objective was to celebrate the unique features of Rubí with the participation of all citizens, from kids to the elderly. For eight days, diverse venues in the municipality hosted 40 plus activities: conferences, film clubs, concerts, theatre, guided tours, training sessions and artistic interventions in the urban space. Their aims have been entertainment, acquiring new knowledge and also reflecting on different realities.
As Mayor Ana María Martínez Martínez stressed, ‘despite the restrictions of working in a pandemic setting, we have used this first edition of COLOR Week to spread the word to the population about the philosophy underlying the COLOR project. The project is cross-cutting and shared, calling for a revival of Rubí’s identity and its unique and wonderful traits.’ For the mayor, the wealth of activities has captured the ‘colors’ of Rubí in an exemplary way, ‘a diverse, plural, creative and innovative city’.
Moisés Rodríguez Cantón, councilman for International City Promotion, added: ‘The programming for COLOR Week has been a found space that has let us learn, compare ideas about the matters that concern us and also enjoy the creativity on the street, thanks to the involvement of edRa and local artists’.
One of the core areas of the event has been dissemination. Through five conferences and a film club screening and debate, COLOR Week handled different topics linked to the COLOR project and the promotion of a diverse and inclusive Rubí. Expert Pere Ortega talked about colour trends in design and architecture; psychology lecturers Andrés di Masso and Sergi Valera broke down the social issues involved in urban design; history professor David Fernández de Arriba and the president of Amical Mauthausen, Enric Garriga, showed the relationship between comics and historic memory; photographers Carles Mercader and Enric Montes gave a talk on colour in photography; and psychology professors María Palacín and Elena Sorribes delved deeper into emotions and their colours. These talks were rounded out with the activity organised round the short film Guillermina, before debating the difficulties that migrants endure.
This topic of discrimination, whether for racial or gender reasons, was also present in other proposals during COLOR Week. Taking advantage of coinciding with the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (21 March), a surprise participative action was organised called Breaking Walls, whose aim was to raise citizens’ awareness on the prejudices suffered by migrants. Moreover, Rubí Jove (Young Rubí) scheduled a film club screening and debate on trans visibility.
Community actions and interventions in the urban space
Another important core theme of COLOR Week was the different actions done on the street to add colours to Rubí’s urban landscape. The participation of the edRa Art & Design School was key for carrying out many of these initiatives. In the framework of the proposal Animal Art, for example, kids from the artistic expression workshops at the centre filled one of the walls in Plaça Nova Estació with drawings of animals created by students from three schools, Mossèn Cinto, Pau Casals and Ca n’Alzamora. edRa Art & Design School also held an intervention in the passageway between the Escardívol building and the Post Office lot, painting concrete barriers with the iconic hexagons of COLOR. The school also worked with students from the Duc Institute of Montblanc and the Montessori School on the initiative AraArt (ArtNow), creating a mural inspired by the latter school.
Rubí Jove als Barris (Young Rubí in the Neighbourhoods) also promoted the community action Our Identity, during which several young people from El Pinar participated in an art workshop, painting the benches in front of the neighbourhood community centre.
Street art was one of the most visible faces of COLOR Week. For two weeks, Rubí graffiti artist Urih worked on a new spectacular mural inspired by The Adventures of Pinocchio. The painting, which he finished last Thursday, is on one of the buildings between Plaça Constitució and Passeig Les Torres.
This graffiti artwork was precisely one of the many points of interest during the two street art routes organised by Rubí Jove (Young Rubí), one for the general public and the second exclusively for pensioners.
The return of live audiences
One of the milestones of this first edition of COLOR Week was reviving live concerts with real audiences and, thus, the feelings of live music, after a year of pandemic. The event was inaugurated on 21 March, International Color Day, with a performance by the Chamber Orchestra of the Pere Burés Municipal Music School at El Celler. Further, in the setting of the programming for COLOR Week, the music performance series envelaRts returned, with two concerts in Plaça Celler Cooperatiu. The first by Sr. Chen and the second by Linotip.
Within this cultural section, Rubí residents could also enjoy other proposals, such as the celebration of World Theatre Day, with three stage shorts at La Sala Municipal Theatre and the performance of the work Manual de supervivència. Homenatge a Boris Vian. (Survival Manual: Homage to Boris Vian).
COLOR Week programming concluded with two training sessions aimed at improving the competitiveness of the city’s shops and businesses.
You can look at the best images and videos taken during the event on the municipal website.