Democratizing art and turning it into an activity that involves all families is the goal of the Container Door Art Festival 2025, which in its third edition, from May 15 to June 15, will include two simultaneous venues for the first time: Guadalajara and the Magical Town of San Pedro Tlaquepaque.
“This festival aims to bring families this wonderful world of art that people are usually kept away from. It’s a way for people to realize that art is not for minorities but for everyone,” Taufic Gashaan Basil Detrel, founder and director of the festival, told El Economista.
“The fundamental pillar of the festival is to promote art as a family; it’s for everyone. We are not a small group; it’s an event for the whole family… It was born from the intention of uniting families more and inviting them to realize that art is not far from their homes,” he added.
According to the artist, one of the festival’s main activities is the exhibition of container doors, which will be created by 15 artists from Italy, Havana, and Mexico. These doors will be displayed along a 100-meter stretch of the Avenida México median strip in Guadalajara, right in front of the KIVA real estate developments, one of the festival’s sponsors, as well as in front of the Novena México building belonging to the same company.
At the festival’s other venue, the municipality of Tlaquepaque, doors from previous editions will be displayed along the tourist area of Avenida Independencia.
“I’m an architect who specializes in things involving containers, and it stems from the significance a door has in my life; the door is the gateway to a space that can be magical, retrospective, introspective, the beginning of something or the conclusion of something,” Taufic Gashaan emphasized.
In addition to the exhibition, the Container Door Art Festival also offers free lectures and workshops open to the public on different techniques.
“We have visual artists, and we don’t limit ourselves to just one activity; it’s open to everyone. There are sculptors, painters, and within each of the fields, each artist has a specific technique, and sometimes they combine them,” explained the festival director.
Convinced that the festival’s continuity is essential for the public to become familiar with art, Taufic Gashaan anticipated that the goal is to catapult it into a larger venue where other arts such as music and theater can be offered.
“We want to organize an art competition where we have a strong funding base; “I hope that all the proceeds from each festival will be given back to the public through free events, workshops, and lectures, because this is an event that seeks to promote culture and bring it closer to families from all walks of life, because we don’t want to be classist,” stated the founder of the festival, which is currently financed by himself and some sponsors.
According to the artist’s projections, “we aspire to be the most important modern art festival in Latin America in less than eight years. Our state has the potential to provide that and more.”
Source: eleconomista
