Without restrictions, after the dark years of the pandemic, the heart of the Fallas will beat again in the Urban Falla of 2023 with the work of the artists Marina Puche and Manolo García Lleonart. “It symbolizes rebirth: a heart that has stopped and is pumping again,” describes the 40-year-old Valencian illustrator, who was the first woman to sign the resolution of the town hall, the monument that represents the entire city It is out of competition. Officially, the fallas begin on March 15th and end on March 19th, but the streets breathe the festive atmosphere and the mascletàs are fired from March 1st.
With a clean and simple style and a lot of humor, Puche has chosen this vital organ as a metaphor of the moment: the party is finally back to normal, without the restrictions of the past few years, and neither has his family experienced cardioversion a long time ago, a medical procedure, in which rapid, low-energy shocks are used to restore a person’s normal heart rhythm. And the result is Cardioversió Valenciana, “a big mistake that tries to convey to the public the emotions and experiences that make our hearts light up”, the author wishes.
Puche, daughter and granddaughter of Fallas artists, has lived surrounded by Ninots since childhood and paints the portraits she loves so much in the family workshop. “In my house we ate and ate with failure. The figures stood in the corridor and my grandmother dressed them; We experienced that a lot,” he recalls. She is the third generation in a line of Fallas artists that started with her grandfather Julián, continued with her father Pepe Puche and now with her. Both were award-winning artists in the special section that brings together the biggest monuments with the biggest budgets.
He learned from his father, an employee at the Lladró porcelain factory, that the workshop was a place of work but also of pleasure. “The pieces came out of storage perfect, with fine work done with great care,” he points out. She proudly describes her father as a master modeler: “He’s a great sculptor, I’m more of a draftsman. I see everything flatter, graphically. Illustration, drawing is my thing,” he admits. At the moment her life consists of painting pictures, running the company Manitas de Plata with her partner sister and designing fallas, first for children, now for adults.
He studied fine arts at university, where he met his friends Ceballos and Sanabria and was encouraged by his artistic anatomy teacher: “We made our first fallita.” Today she is the author of the municipal monument and her friends, José Luis Ceballos and Francisco Sanabria, sign the children’s debt. You are the future of a trade with many unknowns. “The failure is experiencing a difficult period due to the increase in material costs and the impossibility of passing it on to the commissions. And since there is a lot of competition, the artist also wants to do the best possible job. It’s very complicated,” he admits, while defending that the ideal would be “to get all the artists to agree and reduce the size, because the flaw can have the same grace, the same art, with a smaller one Size . The falleros have to understand the position of the artists,” he defends. And he says so, doing an exercise in self-criticism, knowing that the municipal monument he’s doing this year is gigantic. “The fallas are very high this year and while it seems they are paying better than they were seven or eight years ago, that is not the case. The only way is to use more ingenuity and reduce monumentality, as has been done before. I see the mistakes my grandfather made and they don’t have to be that big or put seven reverse shots.
With his Valencian cardioversió set to be erected at the foot of the square, Puche admits he gets excited when it gains volume. “Manol [García LLeonart, el constructor del monumento] He makes the mistakes in wood and I wanted a design that he was comfortable with.” She’s glad to be the first woman to commit the communal debt, but she hasn’t gone to her head either. “It’s strange that this has never happened before,” he says, while noting that there are still few, and those who are primarily devoted to children. “There is still a lot left to balance,” he adds.
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For Puche, his father is his great ally: “Without him, I wouldn’t have even dared to do half of what I did. For me it’s life insurance.” Satisfied with the result, the artist has been exhibiting her work in the Center del Carme for a few days. In his exhibition, he talks about his love for the Fallas at first sight, his enthusiasm for everyday life and the details who sweeten the day.
Occupancy at pre-pandemic level
Valencia and the world of Fallas return to normal this year. The party is expected to be massive as their big days coincide with the weekend. The Visit Valencia foundation, which is responsible for local tourism, and the hoteliers are forecasting excellent figures. The expected hotel occupancy will exceed that of the past five years and be at pre-pandemic levels, according to Deputy Mayor and Councilor Sandra Gómez, who released the data from the survey conducted by Visit València on the nights of March 17 and 18 the occupancy rate will reach 86.5%, above the 83% of 2022; but also above pre-pandemic levels: 71% in 2019; 86% in 2018; and 79% in 2017.
Gómez congratulated the hospitality industry for “the great work they do every day so that the name of Valencia is associated with a guarantee of quality and is a top-of-the-line tourist destination”. Overall occupancy for the week of March 13-19 will reach 72.9%; and the occupancy rate for the main nights of Fallas week, the 17th and 18th, will be 86.5%. It should be borne in mind that March 20th is a public holiday in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, which also contributed to the fact that the night from 19th to 20th has an occupancy rate of over 74%.
One of the most outstanding pieces of data from the Visit Valencia survey is that expected hotel occupancy is spread across all neighborhoods. For example, on the night of March 18, the occupancy rate is 88% in the city center, rising to 91% in the beach and port area and 92% in the Ciutat de les area. art and science.
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