Sunday at HIE 2023: Spanish Session

 Crossing continents with our last session, we were delighted to have with us Victoria Logan, Nazirah Avro, and Tosha Tyran. This Spanish Session gave lovers of languages the chance to sample four different accents, and three different windows onto the world as seen through Spanish-speaker's eyes.

From pure virtual art, to a personal testimony, to a RL monument made into mesh, it was a whirlwind of emotions.

Xirana Oximoxi was the Moderator for this session. Xirana is a writer with an extraordinary talent also for illustrations. She has published several books for children, and also has this really beautiful and moving blog full of her art - please do not miss it. Xirana lives in Catalonia, while Victoria is in Argentina, and Nazirah in Venezuela. As you can imagine, getting everyone to the event on time, with so many time zones involves, was something of a challenge! But Xirana's calm and kind demeanor and her good sense of fun got us through the trickiest bits of the planning and execution of the event!  Virtual worlds pulling our global community together all on one stage!

Coming to us from Venezuela, Nazirah Avro gave a talk called 'My Journey in Opensim' -  a personal account of what virtual worlds have meant to her over the years. 

The opportunity to make clothes and sell them in Second Life, but also to be part of the musical community in both SL and Opensim, hers is the story of how virtual worlds can lift and alter your real life experience and bring you into contact with a wider world, far from your physical home, and form genuine bonds of friendship and community, and even a paying job. 

Victoria Logan's talk was equally personal - but in a different way. Victoria recently set up a fantastic art show, in collaboration with some of OSGrid's most well known names, along with others from different grids, in a project called 'Art and Friends'. The region, a lush lagoon rimmed by mountainous terrain, is full of tableaux representing, in its first incarnation at least, some artistic musings on women through history - groundbreaking figures like Marie Montessori, Frida Kahlo, Amelia Earhart, and many more - and women in fiction, from the Disney heroines to notable females from literature. It's easy to see how this environments will be always a welcoming one for artists, as exhibitions come and go, and through her many good friendships with artists from around the world, Victoria has created an atmosphere of fun-loving and respectful cooperation. Great work.

Victoria's booth in the HIE Expo gives you all the info on her "Art and Friends" project

Finally, Tosha Tyran with her exceptional story of the evolution of the RL city of Bilbao from polluted wreck to shining example of rejuvenation thanks to the Guggenheim museum. 

After a series of photographs showing the city as it once was, Tosha went on to reveal something splendid - the Bilbao Guggenheim in opensim! This is a 'miniature' version of her mesh build - on Tosha's region in Craft Grid called "The Caravan" . There, you can visit the full size version, and it is spectacular.  The Spanish session closed with great fanfare, looking at Tosha's creation among the fireworks.

Tosha's Guggenheim grand finale

After such a treat, we all went back to party at an encore performance by Cherry Manga. Sky Haze is 30 minutes of bliss. Thank you all - booth makers, moderators, translators, production engineers, camera personnel, greeters, subtitle technicians, performers, artists, and presenters - and to you the public for making this three day event such a success.

Sky Haze by Cherry Manga - Audience participation required