The International Festival of Living Arts in Loja (FIAVL) is the main living arts activity in the country, as part of the cultural policy of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, in compliance with the guarantee of the exercise of cultural rights. The FIAVL activities guarantee participants the right to disseminate their own cultural expressions, as well as citizen access to various artistic manifestations. In this regard, creative capacity and the dignified and sustained exercise of cultural and artistic activities within the public space are promoted, boosting cultural exchange, access to inclusive audiences, social cohesion and the promotion of equality in diversity, all subject to the constitutional principles and the Organic Law of Culture.
Loja's citizens have recognized the FIAVL as the largest platform for living and performing arts in Ecuador and as a national precedent for positioning a territory from the cultural point of view. In this way, the circulation, commercialization and access of living arts in the country is encouraged and promoted, and its realization allows the increase of GDP from the cultural sector. Its scope articulates cultural managers and creators, the State and the private sector, energizing collective construction processes to meet the FIAVL objectives and align them with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): achieving safe and sustainable cities, promoting economic growth and decent work, reducing inequality, halting environmental degradation, achieving gender equality and promoting peaceful and inclusive societies.
The FIAVL has been established as an instrument for the implementation of cultural public policy. It takes place in multiple conventional and non-conventional scenarios, and in public spaces in the city of Loja. Moreover, it includes a previous and itinerant component called "Camino a Loja National Program", which travels through different cities throughout the country with artistic and training activities.
Since the FIAVL's first edition, the citizens of Loja have been engaged with all the activities carried out, several streets of Loja are pedestrianized during those days motivating the appropriation of public spaces and turning them into a living stage. Families, children, young people, adults, seniors, schools, high schools and more get involved and become part of the FIAVL. Moreover, trade and cultural tourism greatly increase on those days. Loja lives a cultural festival that has been institutionalized as part of its festivities.
In December 2018, the "Organic Law for the Institutionalization of the International Festival of Living Arts in Loja as a Space for Encounter and Promotion of Cultural Expressions and Identity of Ecuador" was approved. With this regulation, the FIAVL and the "Camino a Loja" National Program are institutionalized as "priority and relevant artistic and cultural events of Ecuador and its peoples and nationalities, as meeting spaces for the exercise of cultural rights and the promotion of the identity of Ecuadorians, and a platform for national and international intercultural relations. It will support and promote culture as a hub of economic development." The FIAVL will be carried out annually, continuously, permanently and compulsorily in the city of Loja every November.
Consolidated results:
YEAR 2016 2017 2018 2019
BENEFICIARIES 186,000 549,000 548,990 300,000
PROGRAMMING ATTENDEES 31,261 32,000 35,573 No published data
Total number of events (works and workshops) 53 116 89 100
SCHEDULED LIVING ARTS GROUPS 44 46 36 19
"CAMINO A LOJA" ACTIVITIES 9 12 12 No published data
Source: Ministry of Culture and Heritage (2019)
Year Investment in Dollars
2016 US$ 1,933,090
2017 US$ 3,000,000
2018 USD $2,600,000
2019 US$ 1,554,893
Total US$ 9,087,983
Source: Ministry of Culture and Heritage (2019)
| Name of partner | Type of entity |
|---|---|
Decentralized Autonomous Government of Loja
| Public Sector
|
Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Private Technical University of Loja)
| Private Sector
|
Ministry of Tourism
| Public Sector
|
Various Artists and Cultural Managers of the Living Arts of Ecuador
| Civil Society Organization (CSO)
|
Foundation for Business and Social Development.
| Civil Society Organization (CSO)
|
Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana (Ecuadorian House of Culture)
| Public Sector
|
The first two editions of FIAVL were evaluated in October 2018, which resulted in a project that showed the need to have a strategic vision, mission and objectives, to guide the activities of FIAVL and the need to have a management unit within the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, responsible for its artistic direction, coordination, development and execution. The SWOT analysis carried out contributed to the construction of public policy guidelines for FIAVL, with the aim of generating actions to promote and strengthen the components of the Festival: Pre-production and production, artistic programming, presentation spaces, circulation and value, business roundtable, and Road to Loja; and, in this way, guarantee its efficient and optimal annual development.
In 2019, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage signed an agreement with the Foundation for Business and Social Development and the Private Technical University of Loja for the creation of a cultural observatory to enable the yearly evaluation of the Festival's impact.