"Culture is alive to the extent that it is conflictive," wrote Manuel de Pedrolo in his diary. This idea is the starting point for the fifth edition of Perifèria Cultural, the cycle of music, land, and gastronomy that since 2021 has been traveling through the Catalan Countries, bringing artistic proposals outside the big commercial circuits to equally peripheral spaces: towns and corners of the country that are left out of tourist and cultural radars. For six months, from May 23 to November 15, the cycle will feature over 100 shows in forty-five municipalities.

You're a performer, but for some time now you've been delving into the world of gastronomy with the Perifèria Cultural festival. Why did you decide to venture into this new field?

In the Catalan music and cultural scene, it often seems that visibility accumulates in "vintages"—generations of artists who dominate festivals and the media. According to Marçal Girbau and Estel Solé, co-directors of Perifèria Cultural, each season sees a small group of names appear who are repeated "at all the small and big festivals," creating a dynamic that prioritizes commercialism over artistic quality.

"Let's avoid microwave culture," says Estel Solé, co-director of the Periferia Cultura festival, which will celebrate its third edition in different regions of the country from May 31 to October 31. We are at the Espai Bosià in Barcelona, ​​​​where chef Sergi de Meià prepares dishes with ancestral recipes (some dating back to the 13th century). Journalists listen with reverential silence to the chef's hypnotic explanations about partridges, pumpkin dishes, and white food. They also try to follow the details that Solé and Marçal Girbau, the festival's other director, share about an eminently musical program that includes names like Roger Mas, María del Mar Bonet, Quimio Portet, Remedio de Ca la Fresca, Marina Rossell, Feto, Sa Pena, and Adrià Puntí. In addition, there will be special projects, such as the on-stage reunion of Bisbal natives Carles Sanjosé (Sanjosex) and Jaume Pla (Mazoni), the joint performance by Joan Colomo and Selma Bruna (ex-Marala), the intimate, unamplified Eléctrica Dharma, and the glosses of the '. Gastronomy will also play a relevant role, led by Sergi de Meià, a chef who proposes "recovering the Catalan gastronomic spirit."