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Once again, the Hay Festival officially kicks off with the inauguration of the exhibitions that are part of its visual arts programme. The tour will begin in La Alhóndiga which hosts a retrospective of one of the most famous Spanish reporters, the photographer César Lucas. The exhibition Snapshots Imprinted on the National Retina shows some of the best-known images of a photojournalist who forged his career at dailies such as Pueblo and El País, of which he was a founding member. He later worked for magazines of Grupo Z. Che Guevara’s visit to Madrid from 1959 or the mythical cover of Interviú that marked the passage of the girl Marisol to the actress Pepa Flores are some of the photographs that remain on the national consciousness of several generations of Spaniards.

The tour then moves on to Esteban Vicente Museum to open the exhibition Hágase en mi, según tu palabra by the Spanish multimedia artist Ana de Alvear, who specialized in large-format works. It is an installation that occupies the presbytery and the nave of the chapel inspired by the biblical passage of the Annunciation. A Virgin who shelters herself at the announcement of the Archangel Saint Gabriel and a choir of contemporary angels make up the installation. Ana de Alvear is also an exhibition curator and founder of the VIVA video art project that brings together artists of various nationalities and who has travelled the world from Madrid to Shanghai.

The third stop is at the church of San Juan de los Caballeros where the exhibition The Living Sea presents the images of committed conservationist Hussain Aga Khan. Underwater photographs inspire dialogue about the fragility and beauty of life in the oceans and the danger that climate change poses to species. Specializing in photographing nature, from the Amazon rain forest of Brazil to the oceans of the entire planet, Hussain Aga Khan has exhibited in the US, France, Switzerland, Kenya and his images have appeared on National Geographic blogs. An important part of his activity is channelled through projects and foundations whose mission is to improve the management of natural resources. In 2004, he founded Focused on Nature, which channels funds for the protection of endangered species.

The tour concludes at the Huerta de Félix Ortiz where the Colombian artist Alberto Baraya shows his greenhouse of flowers and plants made of cloth and plastic: Tropical “Mutisian” Greenhouse. Baraya’s exhibition explores natural conservation and a reflection on the relationship between fiction and reality. His participation in the 2006 Sao Paulo Biennial brought him international recognition. There he exhibited a two-metre-high rubber tree made with latex as a metaphor for the product obtained from said tree.

Free, but ticketed

Photography of Venice: © César Lucas, courtesy of the author

Arcangel Gabriel Altarpriece – Color pencil drawing – Size 70 x 100 cm © Ana de Alvear 2019, courtesy of the artist

Prince Hussain Aga Khan © Shari Plant Plummer

Artificial plant greenhouse – Artistic installation © Alberto Baraya, 2020, courtesy of Fernando Pradilla Gallery

Joaquín Araújo argues that the most beautiful, essential, generous and welcoming creation of nature is a wood and that our future does not make sense without trees and yet this civilization has affected its most reckless clumsiness by devastating the great home of life. He says so in his latest book, Los árboles te enseñarán a ver el bosque (Trees Will Show us How to See the Wood), in which he once again calls to attention all that we are wagering if we continue to turn our backs on Nature. Now that climate change seems to have made it onto the agenda of institutions, it is more pressing than ever to address the questions regarding the urgency of sustainability policies and how the lessons from a pandemic that is devastating the world should be the cornerstone to change course in our relationship with the natural world. Araújo is an icon in Spain for his defence and promotion of Nature from his early days when he worked alongside internationally acclaimed Spanish naturalist and broadcaster Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. Araujo can lay claim to almost 100 books, over 2,000 speeches, hundreds of educational programmes in audiovisual media, but perhaps the figure he’s most proud of is the 22,000 trees he’s planted throughout his life. An entire forest.

Araújo will talk to the journalist and author Miquel Molina, Associate Editor of La Vanguardia, the newspaper in which he has a weekly op-ed. Molina has authored essays and novels such as Una flor del mal, La sonámbula, L’Everest al´hora punta or Alerta Barcelona. His most recent work is Naturaleza muerta, an essay on the story of the stuffed man known as the Negro of Banyoles, and in his view an example of 19th century fake news and a chapter in ethnological showbusiness.

Photography of Joaquín Araujo: courtesy of Grupo Planeta

Four experts with hands-on know-how in garden design discuss the importance of these pockets of nature and beauty in our lives: namely, Fernando Caruncho, an internationally renowned Spanish landscape artist for whom geometry and light are the essence of his work, as exemplified by the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris; Umberto Pasti, the Italian horticulture enthusiast who in Rohuna (Morocco) created a paradise with more than 1,200 species of native flora; Cristina Castel Branco, the Portuguese expert in the historical gardens of her country and their relationship with mosaics; and the Uruguayan settled in Spain Julia Casaravilla, museologist and owner and curator of the Romeral de San Marcos, the garden designed by her late husband and landscape artist Leandro Silva.

They will talk with Sofía Barroso, cultural manager and organizer of garden tours.

In case of rain, the event will take place at the same time inside the Torreón de Lozoya

Fernando and Pedro Caruncho’s photography: courtesy of the studio Caruncho Garden & Architecture

Photography of Umberto Pasti: © Ngoc Minh Ngo, courtesy of Around Art

Photographs of Cristina Castel Branco and Sofia Barroso: courtesy of Around Art

Committed conservationist Prince Hussain Aga Khan presents his photographic exploration of the world underwater in his exhibition The Living Sea, which is part of the visual arts programme during the festival and can be visited at San Juan de los Caballeros. The extraordinary collection acts as a point of departure to raise social awareness of the sublime beauty, complexity and fragility of life in the oceans. The eloquent narrative of the images inspires dialogue on the global impact oceans have on science, the overarching environment and contemporary society. He will speak with Prince Lorenzo de’ Medici – author of historical novels and thrillers who has taken part in several television programmes about his distinguished family – about the motivation behind the exhibition, how it came about and his association, Focused on Nature.

Photography of Aga Khan: courtesy of Focused on Nature

The miracle lasted but a few months. The pandemic devastated the planet. People withdrew into their homes. And nature recovered substantial ground. Now Earth shudders once more. It wants to talk. Talk with a firm voice. And also a poetic one. Three Spanish poets settled in Castilla y León gather in a setting defined by the footprint of its natural heritage to raise their voices with verve in a new song to nature. Belén Artuñedo (Cuadernos de China, Teselas, Orden de alejamiento) has likewise accumulated a wealth of poetry full of force and expressive vigour, with a deep and penetrating look on the world and human beings. Fermín Herrero (Tierras altas, Sin ir más lejos, Alrededores) is one of the most relevant poets on the subject of the planet and nature of our time, through a poetry that turns the most basic, the insignificant, into a universal symbol of the passing of man on Earth. Lastly, the poetry of Carlos Aganzo (Las voces encendidas, Las flautas de los bárbaros, En la región de Nod) permanently delves into the truth and falsehood of human beings, their relationship with themselves, with others and above all with the natural environment that surrounds them. Poetic humanism and naturalism at a time of redemption and reencounter with Earth. The Earth that we are. The one that belongs to us and to which we belong. The Earth that remains at this critical and unique time.

In case of rain, the event will take place at the same time inside the Palacio de Quintanar