Cooperativa Tierra de Calatrava, first prize in the Showcase Contest

The jury of the 2021 Showcase Contest of the Miguelturra Carnival meeting on February 17, decided to award the following prizes:

1st Prize consisting of 300 Euros and diploma, Cooperativa Tierra de Calatrava

2nd Prize consisting of 200 Euros and a diploma, La Disfrutería de Alba

3rd Prize consisting of 150 Euros and diploma, Electrodomésticos Tere

The contest has been organized by the Department of Celebrations of the Hon. Miguelturra City Council and the Carnival Peñas Association.

The quality and originality of the windows that have been submitted to the contest must be highlighted.

The jury for this edition was made up of Julián Arévalo Céspedes, window dresser, Raúl Domínguez Donate, president of the Carnival Peñas Association, Virginia Gómez, designer and window dresser, Serafín Delgado Martín, King of Carnival, Diego Rodríguez Tercero, councilor for Celebrations and Raquel Fernández Mera, worker in the Culture Area acting as secretary of the jury.

This year the Miguelturra Carnival should be different, it does not touch a party, nor a fuss, what it touches is responsibility.

Serious faces in the presentation of the Miguelturra Carnival 2021, the Carnival museum ‘Momo’ has been the chosen stage. 

Both the mayor of the town Laura Arriaga, as the celebration councilor Diego Rodríguez, the King of Carnival Serafín Delgado, the president of the Association of Peñas Raúl Domínguez, major masks than 2020, Mª Carmen Céspedes and Manuel González, have transmitted the need If we are responsible for the situation we are experiencing, for the first time a carnival will be experienced very different from the one we know, we must stay at home because there is nothing to celebrate and wait for this situation to pass to re-emerge in 2022 like never before.

Laura Arriaga in her speech has asked that this carnival be historic, but out of responsibility. Along the same lines, the authorities of our carnival have spoken, requesting citizens to stay at home and avoid unnecessary infections.

Diego Rodríguez, councilor for festivities has shelled out the few activities that this carnival will have. Work will continue on the brand of our carnival ‘Get to know me’, there will be a shop window contest, the carnival walls project with its three urban art murals, there will also be a ‘La Churriega’ mask race, but it will be in educational centers as safe spaces in the face of COVID-19, our Miguelturra Fondistas will be missed and finally, a video contest through the social network TikTok.

On the other hand, in the Plaza del Pradillo de Clavería the second of the urban art murals has begun.

Organized by the Area of Celebrations in collaboration with the Association of Carnival Peñas

The Miguelturra City Council decided to suspend the 2021 Carnivals due to responsibility and announced it at the official press conference on September 22, chaired by the Councilor for Celebrations, Diego Rodríguez and the president of the Carnival Peñas Association, Raúl Domínguez.

Thus, for the first time in the history of Miguelturra in democracy, “our festivities of National Tourist Interest will have a break due to COVID-19 that due to responsibility and complying with current regulations, we ask for prudence, that we take care of ourselves and stay at home” explains Rodríguez.

However, as a councilor for Celebrations, he knows that Miguelturra would be finishing the last stitches in the suits, opening the trunks and preparing “everything that makes us feel the happiest people in the world, a time in which we all lose our shame, where criticism and satire leave no one indifferent and preparing our voices so that the cry ‘WHAT DON’T YOU KNOW ME?! ring out loud”.

For this reason, the Department of Celebrations has decided to make a great tribute to this Carnival thanks to the project called “Carnival Walls” so that the carnival spirit accompanies us all year round. Specifically, there are three murals that will see the light of these 2021 carnivals.

These allegories of carnival will be located on Carnaval 1 street, which is being worked on, another in Pradillo de Clavería square, and the last one will be at the end of Cervantes street with Pradillo de Clavería Square. This great work of urban art by the artists Gela and Javi Ponsada will be finished by February 12.

This initiative, together with the fifth edition of the Shop Windows Contest, which still has an open registration period, aims for the street mask, the carnival brand and all traditional elements of the Churriego carnival to take over the walls, walls and shop windows of the town for the enjoyment of the neighbors.

The idea of the carnival street murals comes from the project “We Propose” of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, where our schoolchildren propose ideas for the improvement of our cities through innovation, sustainability and education, and in the that the CEIP “El Cristo” has been awarded and distinguished.

Rodríguez explains that in January 2020 he attended a talk in the fifth grade classroom of the CEIP “El Cristo” to listen to various projects and discuss them. There are four students: Alba Rebato, Jorge Mohíno, Clara Rivas and Sergio Martínez, who proposed to paint some elements of the carnival on buildings or walls.

After the debate, explains the mayor, the idea of “Carnival Walls” arises, a project that is having a great impact on social networks and that from the Festivities Area “we invite citizens to know much more about our carnival as a differentiating element of Miguelturra within Castilla-La Mancha. We consider that the mixture of urban art and popular traditions positions us at the cultural vanguard in the region and generates added value to our carnival “.

Finally, Diego Rodríguez thanks the Association of Carnival Peñas for their constant support to spread our big party and our brand “Know me” of the carnival, to the Trujillo and Barco family, for the transfer of use of said walls to be able to painting the graffiti, the professionalism of the urban artists Gela and Javi Ponsada, and the involvement of the four schoolchildren in the project, “thanks to students like them the future of the carnival is more than assured” concludes the councilor.