Even in these times of quarantine, artists still manage to find ways to gather to practice their craft. In addition to working on their creations within health guidelines, they have also decided to gather to share knowledge and bring art to the community. An example of this is the Peruvian Amazonarte Festival, which this year is reinventing itself with a virtual meeting that will unite all of Latin America.
In this fifth edition of this event, planned to start on April 27th and run until the end of the month, Latin American muralists will paint walls in real-time and give workshops from their homes. There will also be interviews with important cultural figures from countries across the region.
The creator of this platform, renowned muralist and cultural influencer Joe Fernández (Zelvauno), believes that art is the an important part of the foundation needed for society to advance. Therefore, he felt compelled to find an alternative that would allow people to continue creating and spreading art despite limitations imposed by the current pandemic. The idea to create a virtual edition of the festival that people could participate in from home was proposed and welcomed and this has allowed, for the first time, people throughout the world to participate.
There are 43 artists from a total of 20 countries who are contributing their time and expertise to the festival to make it a success. By April 28th, there were already 56 videos of artists working on murals from Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Cuba, Argentina, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Panama, Mexico and more.