BULLY FOR THEM!

Pamplona beckons as the San Fermin festival is poised to start

By Alex Trelinski

THE famous San Fermin ‘bull running’ festival is about to kick off with the ‘Chupinazo’ inaugural firing of a rocket.

People from all across the world will flock to the historic city of Pamplona for the July 7 to July 14 event.

While the running of the bulls and associated bullfights are the most high-profile events, there is much more to the festival than that.

The city council organises more than 500 concerts, parties, firework displays and a ‘wine fight’ where merrymakers soaked each other in tinto.

Every day at 8am, six fighting bulls along with four oxen run the 825 metre route from the Corrales de Santo Domingo to Pamplona’s Plaza de Toros.

An estimated one million spectators will watch thousands of people run with the bulls over the eight days of the San Fermin Festival.

From that moment they worked on developing joint projects, pursuing an unremitting search for a style of their own in fusion of graffiti and classical art.

Recently the pair completed stylized graffiti murals of the Greek gods and subjects from Greek Mythology in Spain and Canada, and also recently took part in the 2023 Mural Festival in Montreal.

In Spain, they have finished a mural in Merida, Extremadura, near to the city’s famous Roman Hippodrome, once used for horse and chariot racing.

Commenting on the new mural, PichiAvo said: “We painted a new version of the Venus del Mitreo which is exhibited in the Museo Nacional del Arte Romano also located in Merida.”

“It involved reconstructing the bust inspired by the Syra- cuse-type Venus from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, since we found the similarity between the two works very fruitful,” they commented.

The synergy between classical art and graffiti can be seen in their many murals of the ancient Greek gods that combine contemporary street art with the sensibilities of the ancient world.

A NEW website will give businesses and individuals an easy way to help fund Gibraltar's 1000-seater national theatre.

The digital platform showcases the latest plans for the theatre at the John Mackintosh Hall, which will get a substantial facelift in the process.

Apart from the main multi-level theatre there will be a secondary studio theatre seating 200 people, a much larger modern library, exhibition spaces and a chic cafe restaurant.

It will replace the current theatre which is much smaller.

The Gibraltar National Theatre Foundation (GNTF) that runs the project is hoping more people and businesses take part in funding the project.

It started its ‘Buy-a-Seat’ campaign that allows entities to put their names on seats they funded, which will be a real legacy to those who fund them.

"We are excited to provide the community with a user-friendly online platform that not only informs about our progress but also invites engagement and support," said a GNTF spokesperson. "

THRILL: but with it comes danger and (below) a firework laden effigy of a bull

Runners are ticketed and strictly limited to 3,000 per day and, contrary to popular belief, most of the injuries are caused by other humans involved in trampling rather than any incidents with a bull.

Deadly

Although, of course, the bulls can be deadly. Since records started being kept in 1910, 15 people have been killed during the runs - mainly as a result of goring.

The last non-Spaniard to die from a goring was an American tourist aged 22 in 1995.

Some 200 people, mainly from the Cruz Roja (Red Cross), provide medical services every 50 metres down the route, with 20 ambulances on stand-by which can take people to hospital in 10 minutes.

The event dates back to the 13th century tradition of transferring bulls from fields outside Pamplona to the bullring where they would be killed in the evening. During that run, youths would jump among them in a display of bravado.