WILTSHIRE.- WOMAD World of Art and Folkestone Triennial 2017 announced the launch of Sol Calero’s Casa Anacaona, a large-scale, site-specific tropical pavilion created by the Berlin-based Venezuelan artist in her largest project to date. Part painting, part sculpture, part social space, Casa Anacaona places contemporary art within a music context at WOMAD, and situates music and dance within contemporary art at Folkestone Triennial.

Constructed by Calero and local creatives in Folkestone, Casa Anacaona traveled to WOMAD to be decorated by festival-goers in painting workshops led by the artist throughout the July weekend. It then returns to Kent for Folkestone Triennial, double edge in September to become a stage set for Salsa dancing sessions. In the late afternoon and evening at both sites the pavilion becomes a secluded carefree environment where visitors can sit, talk, eat and drink.

Casa Anacaona evolves abstract ideas of the coast and sea through a 100 square metre walk-in installation of gates, screens, doors, walls, windows, bespoke furniture, paintings and cut-out fittings alluding to aquatic ephemera. Covered with lush, opulent and starkly contrasting colours, the structure changes the places it inhabits, whether the arboreal idyll of WOMAD or the fishing beach by Folkestone’s Harbour Arm.

Lewis Biggs, curator of Folkestone Triennial 2017 and Chris Smith, global festival director of WOMAD said, “We are really looking forward to seeing Sol’s very imaginative and joyous response to our invitation to create an artwork for two dramatically different contexts. She was chosen for the strong visual interventions she creates in outside spaces, her interest in Latino culture and its exchange of influence with Western European traditions, and the way she collaborates with the public in the development of the work.”

Sol Calero is known for a practice that utilises traditional methods of art making such as painting and drawing, alongside experimentation with found objects, fabric works, and site-based practices. Previous installation works have incorporated dancing sessions, hairdressing salons and cybercafés. She exhibits internationally and is the recipient of several international awards including a nomination this year for the Preis der Nationalgalerie in association with Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. The artist has recently been honoured with a solo exhibition at Dortmunder Kunstverein, Germany and is currently showing at Agencia Viajes Paraíso, Kunstpalais, Erlangen.