Art Festivals Are My Jam: Enjoying the Amon Cultural Event in San Jose

Caitlinepstein415/ March 4, 2018/ Latin America/ 2 comments

Art Festivals Are My Jam: Enjoying the Amon Cultural Event in San Jose

Once a year, the Amon Cultural group in the Amon neighborhood of San Jose puts on a massive art festival with over 100 events for guests to take part in. As soon as I read the line-up, I knew where I would find myself over the weekend. Read further to see what random and artsy things the LIU Global kids got up to.

Artists at Work

Throughout the streets of the Amon neighborhood, artists worked on various pieces, inspired by the atmosphere of the festival.

Art Exhibitions

There were dozens of art exhibitions that visitors could explore yesterday. We especially liked the Pop Art and Ceramic exhibitions. There were also several stations where visitors could write notes to be pinned up on walls.

An Origami Workshop

For about $2, the group took part in an origami workshop. The artist is a pro at origami (the red dragon below took him 10 hours of paper folding), and he also creates stunning paintings of his origami work. We learned from the workshop that Josie is a pro at origami and Ari, our school’s art club president, kinda sucks at it.

Food!

At the festival were several restaurants offering free samples and discounts on their delicious food. I ate sooooo much in one day. My love affair with food began with baguettes. Yes, I’m definitely allergic to gluten-filled baguettes, but when you’re randomly handed a free baguette and strawberry preserves by the French Alliance of Costa Rica, you eat it. We ate our free food on cute French placemats with flower arrangements.

Next, I had a drink that tasted like bottled apple pie from Zero Army. This cute cafe offers gluten free and vegan desserts and fresh smoothies while working to create zero waste, hence the name Zero Army. Later, Josie was lured back by their vegan and gluten free chocolate cake.

Next, we found some fresh plantain and palmito ceviche and Spanish paella with shrimp. I had the ceviche and it was incredible. Full disclosure, the day before, I ate a huge bag of sour skittles that actually drew blood from my tongue. So, the acid from the ceviche was pretty painful in my sour skittle tongue cuts, but worth it. Anyways…

Later, Kendall’s boyfriend showed us to a pastry and coffee shop called Cafe Miel Garage, where I had the most amazing Snickers cake (hey, I already had gluten, so I figured I might as well keep going) and a frozen chai latte (my favorite drink of all time). I managed savor this cake in bits and pieces over a few hours. Yummm.

Hardcore Parkour

Soooo the city art festival included, of all things, a parkour demonstration. Parkour skills (or sometimes lackthereof) were demonstrated by teenage boys as we ate our free baguettes. I managed to snag a few photos of the boys that actually managed some cool tricks and flips.

Shopping

Scattered around the Amon neighborhood are cute boutiques and bookstores. We all ended the day with a bit less money and a few more books and accessories.

Performances

Throughout the day, there were dozens of performances by local groups of dancers and musicians. The performances we saw were of a band with these (creepy) guys in masks and Masauko Chipembere, the husband of my English professor. We ran in to him purely by accident, and upon learning that he was going to be performing in just a few minutes, we headed to see him perform alongside a Costa Rican artist.

This art festival helped to create one of the best days I have had since coming to Costa Rica in August. I love art and live for creative spaces, and can’t wait to find more art festivals like this around the world.