The Flamenco Route: How the Belgian Consulate promoted Facundo Fierro's project (2022)

The Belgian diplomatic service documents that the Belgian consul in Tenerife, Patrizio Ventura, met Facundo Fierro in 2022, and that the idea of organizing an exhibition to highlight the historical ties between the Canary Islands and Flanders emerged from that meeting. The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself presents Fierro as a descendant of Luis Vandewalle and places the project at the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The fact that a foreign diplomatic institution documents, independently of the press and the artist's own websites, the genesis and development of this project is one of the most solid external endorsements found in this investigation. The Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council also released a video in October 2022 titled "The Municipal Museum of Fine Arts connects Flanders and the Canary Islands through Facundo Fierro."

That same month, Fierro explained in Diario de Avisos that the research began with a 16th-century house and the narrative thread connecting the arrival of Flemish merchants in the Canary Islands with his own family history, a story that shapes what he himself calls "The Flemish Route."

Sources: Belgian diplomatic service (diplomatie.belgium.be); Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council; Diario de Avisos (October 2022). More in the artist's biography.