The term ‘lagunear’, used in Tenerife to refer to wandering aimlessly, chatting or letting oneself be carried away by the streets of La Laguna, is the starting point for applying new languages and perspectives to the assessment that San Cristóbal de La Laguna is making of the impact of its designation as the only World Heritage City in the Canary Islands, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of this declaration by UNESCO. In addition to the social, economic and environmental analysis, there is now an artistic journey through the exhibition project ‘Lagunear. Memory and Transformation’, a temporary collective exhibition that, through art, offers a critical and poetic interpretation of the urban, social and cultural development of the city.

LM Arte Colección, in collaboration with the Department of Cultural Heritage, will host this unique collective exhibition from today until 4 December. This initiative brings together, in a historic house in La Laguna, paintings and sculptures created in or linked to the city, exploring how memory can be represented or reinterpreted, and how the gaps in our memory always offer new interpretations.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the works of historical figures in Canarian art, such as Óscar Domínguez, Manolo Millares, María Belén Morales, Pedro González, Pepe Abad, Arminda del Castillo and Elena Lecuona, in dialogue with contemporary artists such as Marisa Bajo, Martín y Sicilia, Juana Fortuny, Carmen Cólogan and Carlos Rivero, among others. The selection includes unpublished and little-known pieces, reinforcing its innovative nature and appeal to the public.

Before its official opening at 7 pm this evening, a special preview was offered to the media, attended by the Mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez; the Councillor for Cultural Heritage, Adolfo Cordobés; the managers of LM Arte Colección, Cristina González Lorenzo and Manuel González Lorenzo, as well as the director of the centre and curator of the exhibition, Eliseo G. Izquierdo.

The mayor of La Laguna highlighted the importance of “an exhibition that is a celebration of our identity, inviting us to look back with sensitivity and forward with hope; it is a tribute to what we were, what we are and what we aspire to be. ‘Lagunear’ is, in that sense, a powerful metaphor: wandering aimlessly, yes, but with our eyes open to the history that inhabits our streets, our homes, our works. Art here not only represents, but transforms, mobilises and has the ability to connect generations from the heart of our city.”

Adolfo Cordobés recalled the Council’s commitment to ‘this interesting project from the outset, because we believe in the power of art as a tool for reflection and social cohesion. Furthermore, its inauguration comes at a deeply symbolic moment for our city, the 25th anniversary of its declaration as a World Heritage Site, a milestone that not only invites us to celebrate, but also to think about the construction and protection of our collective memory’.

More than heritage: preservation in the past and reinterpretation in the present

“At the Department of Cultural Heritage, we understand that heritage is not only what we inherit, but also what we decide to preserve and reinterpret. This exhibition allows us to raise critical awareness about the value of our surroundings, the fragility of everyday life and the need to involve citizens in its defence, as La Laguna not only preserves its history, but also transforms and projects it,” added the councillor.

The González Lorenzo brothers, managers of the centre, highlighted how the LM Arte Colección headquarters, located in a traditional Lagunera house on Obispo Rey Redondo Street (which everyone in the city still calls La Carrera Street), ‘becomes a curatorial device that enhances the discourse of the exhibition, where domestic architecture, with its historical resonances, is integrated into the museographic narrative as part of the city’s story’.

‘This exhibition stems from the desire to share with the public a visual narrative that belongs to us all. Here, art does not illustrate, but rather challenges, transforms and builds community. The selection of works and the exhibition design have been conceived to generate a dialogue between space, time and the viewer’s gaze,’ they added.

The exhibition, curated by Eliseo G. Izquierdo, is structured around the concept of ‘wandering aimlessly through the city, as a metaphor for drift, memory and transformation. Lagunear is an aesthetic and emotional experience that does not seek answers, but rather raises questions, and where we also wanted visitors to recognise in the works the echoes of their own history with the city,’ said Izquierdo.

The director of the centre also pointed out that the exhibition brings together paintings and sculptures created in or linked to the city, with an ‘exhibition layout that unfolds along two axes: representations of La Laguna’s memory and reinterpretations that question or redefine it, a duality that allows visitors to move between evocation and criticism, between archive and rewriting’. .

‘Lagunear. Memory and Transformation’ is not just an exhibition, but an invitation to explore the cultural and heritage memory of La Laguna through art, to rediscover the vital pulse of the city and its particular way of inhabiting it, through its corners, its voices and its silences.

Opening hours

The exhibition will be open to the public from today, 25th September, until 4th December 2025, with free admission from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:00 Tuesday to Friday, while on Mondays it will be open from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The exhibition will be closed on Sundays and public holidays.