peroblasco bell tenerife la laguna

Tenerife-forged bell rings again in tiny Rioja village

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

A village finds its voice again

In uncertain times, a bell rang out once more this Sunday from the belfry of the old church of Peroblasco, in La Rioja, after being hoisted into place to show that this small village has recovered its voice and is a living community. Luis Fernández, coordinator of the cultural association Casa del Burro, told EFE that the 75-kilogram bell was cast in La Laguna, Tenerife, in the workshop of the collective Esculturas Bronzo, made up of the artists Ventura Alemán, Evelina Martín and Francisco Rodríguez, who travelled to La Rioja this weekend.

From Tenerife to La Rioja by sea

Peroblasco lay depopulated for many years until, at the start of the 1980s, several residents began restoring their houses and, as a gesture of protest to remember that the village is alive, they have held the Fiesta del Humo (Festival of Smoke) on the last Saturday of July since 1989. The image of the village’s houses, with coloured smoke pouring from their chimneys during this festival, has been reproduced on the sides of the bronze bell, which travelled by boat from the Canary Islands.

A church silent since 1981

The church of Peroblasco, which was deconsecrated in 1981, has a belfry with two openings, one of them now occupied by the bell, which is 55 centimetres tall and 54 centimetres in diameter. Munilla Council, the local authority to which the village belongs, supported the initiative by providing the technical assistance needed to install the bell.

An artistic ritual

Alemán told EFE that the ceremony to install the bell fulfilled “a ritual, as part of an artistic action”. He said the workshop had made bells before, but never a personalised one like this, which bears on one side the image of the village as seen from the Arnedillo road. The Bronzo sculptors took on the project because of their ties to Peroblasco, where only 17 residents live all year round.

A chain of artists drawn to the village

“It’s a chain: the sculptors came because of me, just as I came because of others,” recalled Fernández, a Canary Islander who has lived in Peroblasco for around thirty years. He arrived thanks to the artist Rosa Casado, who organised the first artists’ residency in the village in 2004, in which Bruno Parra took part and subsequently stayed on to live there.

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