UC welcomes public in the two days of Heritage Day
he offer of free workshops, guided tours and artistic presentations, which included a poet’s mass, brought together children, adults and the elderly, both from the commune and from the rest of the Metropolitan Region. The massive call marks a milestone for the Pirque Extension Center, which was inaugurated a year and a half ago.
Young people dressed in period costumes welcomed the public that came to the Pirque mansion on Heritage Day last May. They were also in charge of the guided tours of the exhibition “Spirit and matter of color in southern Andean viceregal art” from the Joaquín Gandarillas collection and of telling the history of the enclosure, which is more than 120 years old, and which today houses the UC Extension Center.
There were two days -Saturday and Sunday- that included workshops for all ages, artistic presentations, a peasant market for local producers and storytelling for children. “It was a shared management from the Pirque Extension Center and the Headquarters,” says María José de la Cerda, in charge of the facility. Her main concern was to guarantee the quality of the program of activities. “We decided that we were going to have many workshops in all the rooms because what Pircanos appreciate the most is having a free, high-quality cultural offer,” she says.
“We decided that we were going to have many workshops in all the rooms because what Pirque residents appreciate the most is having a good quality, free cultural offer”- María José de la Cerda, manager of the Pirque Extension Center
The program included a wine tasting workshop for the area, led by Alberto Dittborn; and, for children and adults, classes in burlap weaving, watercolor painting, shadow theater and masks. “In all the workshops there were people lining up outside, waiting their turn,” says María José.
And the public that did not manage to register for the workshops walked through the park and the surroundings of the house, which were recently improved with a series of restoration works. “There we put all the works that we have done this year to the test a bit: the parking lots, the circulations, the stone walls,” she says. “I calculate that on Saturday they must have passed through here between 10 in the morning and 7 in the afternoon, more or less 600 people and on Sunday I would say that the influx was double.”
Mass, music and lyrics
On Sunday, a poet-like mass was also held with the participation of the guitarronero Juan Domingo Pérez, a renowned pircano, Living Treasure of Humanity and one of the most outstanding exponents of Canto a lo Divino in Chile. That day also opened its doors to the Future School Library and storytelling, writing workshops and the presentation of the renowned Pirque singer Pepita Muñoz were organized.
María José highlights the key role that the social networks of the three UC Extension Centers have played in disseminating their activities. “They have allowed the Pirque community to find out that it has an Extension Center, open for free from Monday to Friday, where they can see exhibitions, develop courses and workshops, or take a walk,” she says.
Pirque’s offer was integrated into the more than one hundred activities that the UC organized for Heritage Day coordinated by the UC Cultural Heritage Center. As Umberto Bonomo, director of the UC Cultural Heritage Center and professor at the School of Architecture, explains, heritage is more than a list of objects, places, and celebrations: “They are all the actions that activate those places, those objects, or those parties with community”. And he adds: “I really like to talk about enhancement, that is, an action of conservation, activation, celebration, which allows us to grant, increase or discuss the value of something that is important to us. So, what happens on this Heritage Day in Chile is that they activate a series of instances that allow us to reflect on who we are as a community,