The festival team at Solidarity Park would like to thank all those who came to this year’s festival and participated in some way.
Solidarity Park’s core themes are Art, Education, and Memory—linking local communities with international ones and translating historic memory into the living struggles of today. For those reasons, last year we set ourselves the goal to make the festival younger and more international, and we are very pleased to say we achieved both aims.
Eleven educational institutions from Catalunya, England, Wales, and Holland participated in this year’s educational programme. Our honoured guests were 14 students and teachers from the Piter Jelles De Dyk institute in the Netherlands. They played a wonderful part in the festival with their school band, CarrionyX, as well as by making films, interviewing participants, and mixing with the students of Malgrat de Mar.
The students of Malgrat de Mar acquitted themselves excellently, showing great warmth and high levels of participation. They enthusiastically took part in the student activity day, presented the event at the monument, and played music at the final concert.
They were also joined by other young; students, workers, and artists from England and Wales. Contributions from Iraqi artists, as well as local and international musicians, allowed us to celebrate the international solidarity that was the core belief of the International Brigades—those who came to the aid of the Spanish Republic in 1937 aboard the Ciudad de Barcelona. Alongside other international visitors, including families of the International Brigades, they gave the festival a truly global feel.
Young internationalists, both local and from abroad, soaked up the depth of the presentations, discussions, and roundtables. Ranging from Catalan veterans who fought Franco to contemporary struggles such as those in Palestine—as well as the exhibition highlighting the invisible but decisive role of women in the civil war—the festival educated and strengthened everyone who participated, including the 110 people who ate together at our community meal.
This is just a short article, but we will be thanking all those individuals and associations who collaborated in much more detail on our social media over the coming days, as there are simply too many to mention here. However, we would like to make a special mention of the workers at Malgrat de Mar City Council for all their hard work building stages and preparing the festival spaces.
Next year marks the 90th anniversary of the sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona. We intend to commemorate this by doubling the attendance of both local and international visitors. We believe the festival is truly starting to mature and that we have laid down important foundations. However, we cannot do this next big growth without your participation. We have already started planning for next year, so please get in touch.
Festival 2027: May 28, 29, 30
Solidarity Park 