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The exhibition "Guardians of Stone. Alicante's castles" which can be visited from this Friday at the Castle of Santa Barbara starts the collaboration between the Alicante City&Beach Tourist Board and the MARQ.
The exhibition, organised by the MARQ, pays tribute to the 230 castles built throughout the province with the aim of disseminating Alicante's rich heritage. It has already visited 14 localities in Alicante since 2015 and closes its itinerary in the Castle of Santa Barbara, where it can be seen until mid-October.
The Councillor for Tourism, Ana Poquet, inaugurated the exhibition together with the Councillor for Culture, Nayma Beldjilali, the head of Integral Heritage of Alicante City Council, José Manuel Pérez Burgos; the technical director of MARQ, Manuel Olcina; the curator of the exhibition, José Luis Menéndez Fueyo; José Alberto Cortés, manager of the MARQ Foundation, the regional director of Alicante Centro of Banco Sabadell, Ana Ponsoda and the CEO of Esatur, Jorge Rodríguez. The deputy for Culture, Juan de Dios Navarro, was unable to attend.
Poquet said that "this exceptional exhibition, which brings the rich heritage of our castles to Alicante residents and visitors alike, could not be displayed in a better place and is the first of many because we want to create a tourist corridor between Santa Bárbara Castle and the MARQ". He also referred to the fact that "Santa Bárbara Castle has added to its historical attraction a host of leisure and cultural activities that have filled it with more life if possible with the help of the company Esatur".
In addition, the attendees highlighted the great opportunity for dissemination opened up by the exhibition at the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, which last year was visited by 800,000 people.
The 84 selected castles, which are explained on exhibition panels, are grouped into five routes, coinciding with the Alicante regions: La Clau del Regne, in l'Alacantí, the castles of the interior border in the Vinalopó Valley, the castles of the Mountain in L'Alcoià-Comtat, the castles of Tudmir, in the Vega Baja, and those of the Frontera del Miedo (Border of Fear), in the Marinas.
500 years of history
Pérez Burgos stressed that the exhibition "goes through the fortifications of the province, most of them of a military nature but also a refuge such as the Torres de la Huerta, in a historical journey from the Early Medieval period to the Modern Age". Furthermore, in the case of the Castle of Santa Bárbara, he explained, two milestones have been added to the "Guardians of Stone" on its arrival in Alicante, the reconstruction of the Bastion of La Mina, already completed, and the forthcoming Interpretation Centre of the Torres de la Huerta in the Sarrió Tower, which will be carried out with European funding and through an agreement with the Provincial Council of Alicante through the MARQ Foundation.
The technical director of the MARQ, Manuel Olcina, pointed out that "castles are an inseparable part of our lands, so that if they were to disappear the landscape would be mutilated and unrecognisable". "This exhibition makes the heritage and cultural value of Alicante's castles built over 500 years available to the whole of society with the rigour that characterises its curator, José Luis Menéndez Fueyo," he added.
The curator of "Guardians of Stone", Menéndez Fueyo, explained that "Alicante has been, especially in medieval times, a perpetual frontier where the need to wall and fortify itself as a measure of protection and control has had an enormous impact on the territory and constitutes an enormous treasure of historical, heritage and tourist value". And he pointed out that for 35 years the MARQ has been leading an important line of research in the study of castellological heritage and that is where "Guardians of Stone" was born.
For her part, the regional director of Alicante Centro of Banco Sabadell, Ana Ponsoda, praised the work of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, which has supported "the arts, culture, research and education since 1994". "Culture is a tool for progress and social transformation and an engine of creativity, knowledge and innovation, so we are proud to be part of 'Guardians of Stone. The castles of Alicante', which ends its tour at the Castle of Santa Bárbara, emblem of Alicante and the Valencian Community," he said.
In addition, in the Sala Taberna you will be able to see Almiserat, an audiovisual piece produced by the Image Workshop of the Diputación de Alicante which includes various aerial views of the castles of the province accompanied by a voice-over explanation.
In charge of the exhibition's museography is the architect Ángel Rocamora, winner of the Emporia de Oro award for the best travelling exhibition in Spain in 2015 and responsible for the museography of exhibitions such as the Xi'An warriors at the MARQ.
