Revista FESTA, a publication that annually gathers research, articles, reviews, poems, and illustrations about Petrer's past and present, reaches its 84th edition. The presentation will take place this Friday, September 25, at 7:00 PM, in the auditorium of the Cultural Center. Fernando E. Tendero, director of the Dámaso Navarro Museum, specified that the count begins from the start of the festival program's publication.
The Councilor for Culture and Heritage, Fernando Portillo, apologized for a previous postponement and confirmed this Friday's date. This year, Juan Ramón García Azorín, recently honored with the Local Cultural Merit Award of Honor and former head of the Culture and Heritage Service, will present the magazine. García Azorín has also joined this year as co-director of the publication's coordination, alongside Fernando E. Tendero.
Festa 2026 magazine features 256 pages and 30 articles, reviews, poems, and illustrations, divided into six thematic blocks: History and heritage; Environment; Art and literature; Society; Contests and Festivals. It includes contributions from 52 collaborators from Petrer and other towns, with content covering various aspects of local history and culture.
The magazine will be given free of charge to attendees of the presentation, as well as to authorities, associations, and cultural institutions. During the week following the presentation, copies can be collected at the Culture Office. Additionally, the publication will be available digitally and for free access on the Bibliopetrer portal.
One of the central contents of Festa 2026 is dedicated to local visual artist Omar Arráez (Alicante, 1982), who created the magazine's cover and section dividers. The presentation of Festa will be followed by the inauguration of his exhibition “Polvo y plumas. Un lenguaje de pájaros” (Dust and Feathers. A Language of Birds), at the Vicente Poveda hall of the Cultural Center.
Fernando Portillo expressed his delight in featuring a local artist like Omar Arráez, noting it's his first exhibition in Petrer. The exhibition, which draws from sketches of birds made in Almería, explores concepts such as dignity, conflict, flight, and fall through paper, light, and pigments.
Omar Arráez explained that the exhibition is the result of his work over the last four to five years, calling it his most personal production from this period. The work alludes to dust as falling matter and feathers as the possibility of elevation, with the bird as a metaphor for the human being.
Arráez's career includes disciplines such as sculpture, wood carving, ceramics, and large-format painting, with his work on paper becoming a hallmark. His well-known 'Retratos de Papel' (Paper Portraits) combine sculpture, drawing, and painting through a unique technique of folds and wrinkles on paper.
