A Christmas tree made of wood, full of branches, crowned by a Star of David, a symbol of the Jewish religion, and from which bruised heads of children’s dolls hang like decorations. The image may be crude, but it is only the ninot that the Ángel Guimerà-Pintor Vila Prades de València fault, better known as Arrancapins, presented on Friday at the Ninot Exhibition, an exhibition in which it does not compete.
The criticism of it during this weekend has caused the commission, which handcrafts the falla, to have added a text next to the ninot to explain that with its figure “we do not criticize either the religion or the people who profess it.” Arrancapins assures that it seeks to make the viewer think, one of the reasons for the Fallas festival.
The Ninot Exhibition opened to the public last Saturday after the official opening on Friday night and, although the failure assures La Vanguardia that no one has contacted them to protest the figure, given the comments that emerged this weekend they prefer to clarify the reason for their ninot. They remember, of course, that “every artistic manifestation has to create sensations”, and that “it is a hard ninot, yes, but harder is what is happening in Gaza”, explains Pep Romero, coordinator of the commission.
Heading the text with the eloquent “So that there are no misunderstandings”, the commission writes that “we are denouncing the genocide that the Israeli government and its army are carrying out on the Palestinian civilian population, on their towns, on the refugee camps, about hospitals, some of them from humanitarian NGOs and the UN”.
They defend that these are attacks that “are leaving the Palestinian population without a future (systematically murdering boys and girls), and destroying their present (destroying their homes).” And they add that it would be “very desirable” for the Jewish community to express “clearly and openly that it does not approve of this genocide on the Palestinian people and to send it to the Israeli ambassador in Madrid.”
The tree presented at the Ninot Exhibition is an example of the others that will make up the falla, whose motto is “Amboscats.” It will be a fault composed of trees that will recreate different scenes to focus on gender violence, the GTP Chat challenge or the housing crisis. His proposal presents the forest as a space of resilience where different situations occur. The result can be seen from March 15 on the Arrancapins fault.
