196 Pre-Columbian pieces mainly made of stone and others in ceramic which were part of Costa Rica’s archeaological treasure and that had been taken out of the country to Venezuela illegally will arrive back to the country on January 2, according to a press release by the Costa Rica National Museum. The items were pieces sculpt by native Costa Rican indigenous, and have, therefore, historic impo...

Renown US magazine The Atlantic published an article including 40 photographs of volcanoes around the world that had activity during this 2017. The article titled “2017 The Year In Volcanic Activity” includes impressive photos of erupting volcanoes around the world, including the Shiveluch Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula; Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra, Indonesia; in America three volc...

As of 9 p.m. this Wednesday some of the streets in downtown San Jose will be closed partially in preparation for the traditional Festival de la Luz, (Festival of Light or Parade of Light). The partial closure will be on place from 9 p.m. on Wednesday, December 13 through 5 a.m. on Thursday, December 14 and again at 9 p.m. Thursday through 5 a.m. Friday. On Saturday, the area close to Paseo C...

A series of photographs that show the richness of Costa Rica’s biodiversity, particularly that of the Pacuare Nature Reserve is being showcased at the Royal Botanic Garden in Madrid, Spain. The exhibit organized by the Royal Botanic Garden (RJB-CSIC) showcases a collection of photographs taken by the students of the Official Program of Masters and Doctorate in Biodiversity in Tropical Areas an...

The Costa Rican National Theater opened its doors to the public October 19,1897 with the presentation of famous opera “Fausto”; this year, this architectural jewel, witness of a wide number of incredible cultural and artistic performances celebrates 120 years with a week full of fun activities. Celebration begins on Tuesday, October 17 with the presentation of the book “Costa Rica National The...

Last year in December the Costa Rica National Theater along with the ballet company Danzay presented the classic story “Alice in Wonderland”; the presentations were a complete success, each event sold out; due to the great acceptance this fun family show had, it will be presented again this December. The tickets are already available for purchase through the online platform eticket.cr. The date...

Anyone who has attempted to walk in and around San José knows the many challenges of being a pedestrian. Whether it be the utter lack of crosswalks, gaping holes, high curbs that you can't push a baby stroller up, slippery patches from rain and algae, or garbage strewn about, walking the city streets can often be unpleasant. A new Costa Rican non-governmental organization called "Hagamos Ace...

The Costa Rica National Theater is a historical building that this October will celebrate 120 years of existence; it holds an important place in the heart and history of the country, and many times it gets overlooked. Impressive paintings, one of the most important ones being Alegoría del comercio y la agricultura de Costa Rica (Allegory of commerce and agriculture of Costa Rica) by Italian ar...

The third edition of the Urbana Fashion Street Art 2017 promoted by Traffic Communications filled the Plaza de la Cultura in San José with beautifully decorated sculptures in the shape of mouths. This cultural initiative has the goal of bringing people close to different manifestations of art in unconventional formats. The past editions featured the essence of eight Costa Rican historic neighbo...

Shnit, the Worldwide Shortfilmfestival Playground, is celebrating its 14th edition, and it takes place in 8 cities in four different continents simultaneously, Buenos Aires (Argentina), Bern (Switzerland); El Cairo (Egypt); Capetown (South Africa); Moscow (Russia), Tokyo (Japan), and Bangkok (Thailand) and San José (Costa Rica); this year it will be held from the 18th to the 22nd of October. ...

“Muerte Súbita” (Sudden Death), is the name of the Costa Rican short film directed by Kenneth Sanabria and selected to compete in the 14th edition of the New York Latino Film Festival. The New York Latino Film Festival is organized by HBO and will take place October 11 through October 15. “Muerte Súbita” will be competing in the unconventional category “Midnight: Experimental/Off Beat" along...

The Art City Tours are organized with the purpose of introducing national and international visitors to some of the country’s most beautiful museums and different spaces of cultural importance in the middle of the capital city of San José. These events take place every two months, which makes the Art City Tour that takes place Wednesday, September 13th, the second to last event this year. In...

Hernán Jiménez is probably the best known and most successful stand-up comedian in Costa Rica, but that’s not all he is known for, he is also a writer, director, producer, and actor. Jiménez’ last and most popular film so far, “About Us” (Entonces Nosotros) was released in 2016, it was well received by the Costa Rican audience and was selected to be the country’s entry for Best Foreign Language...

The Tamarindo Art Wave Festival 2017 is the result of the hard work and passion of a group of art lovers in this beautiful and inspirational beach town of Costa Rica. A group of artists formed the Tamarindo Arts Foundation, a non-profit, non-government-organization that doesn’t just put together this artistic display but that also plans to create the Tamarindo Arts Academy in the near future. ...

“Costa Rican Art Masters’ Fair” is the name of the exhibit that will be showcasing close to 250 works from over 40 Costa Rican artists in the Gallery 11-12 in Plaza Itzkatzú, Escazú. The exhibit will summarize over 100 years of Costa Rican art history. “We want to follow up in an activity that began in 1986 and that since then has had the goal of promoting art as part of the national identity ...

Photo Credit: To The Wonder Now we can all take pictures of everything anytime we want, but one thing is being able to take a decent selfie and another thing is to have the skills and knowledge to take amazing, breathtaking photos. If photography is something you enjoy, whether as a hobby or on a professional level and adventure travel is on your agenda, this is something you'll certainly be in...

Many see fashion as something ¨superficial¨ or "shallow", but luckily many others understand the art behind it and the important role it has in our culture and history. Fashion certainly goes way beyond just pretty clothes and beautiful models, the creative hands of the artists behind each piece are telling a story, are leaving a mark and are part of the transformation of our society. When we...

Daniel Mordzinski was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1960, he is known as the “photographer of writers”, he has worked for almost forty years in a “human atlas” of the Ibero-American Literature; the work of this artist is being showcased in Costa Rica in the photo exhibit “Objetivo Mordzinski”. The photos are on display at the Calderón Guardia Museum in San José, more than 200 photos of ...

How, and why, would a jaguar paint? Staff at the Las Pumas wildlife rescue center in Cañas, Guanacaste, Costa Rica got inspired with the idea when trying different things to ease the stress of captivity on one of their rescued female jaguars, named Curubanda. They spray a canvas with pheromones, which attract the jaguar to roll on it. Add some color - and boom, a unique wildlife painting is ...

The Costa Rica National Museum takes you through the history of transportation in Costa Rica. Photos, historical objects and a 100 year old carriage that belonged to former President Tomás Guardia (1870-1882) offer us an idea of what life was like in this country back in the XIX century. From mules, carts and carriages, to the streetcar, cars and the construction of the train to the Atlantic...

The Washington, DC-based Indian photographer, Tarun Sinha, captured the contrasting hues of crocodiles and sand on the banks of the Tárcoles River along Costa Rica's Pacific coast, and took a third prize in the 2017 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest. "This image was captured in Costa Rica when I was traveling from Monteverde to Playa Hermosa . As you cross over this rive...

Teen Costa Rican writer Emily Pérez published her first novel in the United States under the title “Yesterday She Was Tiffany”. The work, written for the 2015 edition of the National Novel Writing Month , a program that challenges writers around the world to write 50,000 words in the month of November. Emily is 16 years old, the same age as the main character of her 288 page novel; “Yesterda...

Aeris, the company in charge of the operations of the Juan Santamaría Airport, launched the artistic exhibit “Paraíso Infinito de Posibilidades” , “Paradise of Endless Possibilities”, with the goal of bringing tourists closer to the Costa Rican culture and natural beauty through photographs and sculptures by national artists. “We have been working on this type of initiatives since 2014 through ...

“Amigos son los Amigos”, "Friends are the Friends" is the name of the art exhibit that can be enjoyed at the AG Gallery in San Rafael, Escazú through July 30th and that shows a sample of the works of Joaquín Rodríguez del Paso (1961-2016) and his friends José Sancho and Miguel Hernández. Joaquín Rodríguez del Paso was born in Mexico in 1961 and his family moved to Costa Rica when he was very y...

Another edition of Costa Rica’s Art City Tour takes place today (Wednesday, July 12) starting at 5 p.m. and through 9 p.m. , this edition is titled “Vacaciones en Chepe” (Vacation in Chepe. Chepe is how locals refer to the city of San José). Once again, the Art City Tour involves visits to different museums and galleries in San José; the goal of these events is to allow locals and foreigners to...

Whether you are looking for souvenirs, unique articles to decorate your home or you just want to admire some Costa Rican crafts. The National Park in San Jose and the first floor of Casa del Cuño in “La Antigua Aduana”, Barrio La California are the spaces where you can find 69 and 59 stands respectively that showcase a wide variety of Costa Rican crafts . The talent of local artists can be foun...

The Costa Rica International Festival of the Arts – FIA 2017 kicks off tomorrow Thursday, June 29th and will fill the capital city with different art, music and theater shows. The Municipality of San José has confirmed all international and national events, the majority of which will be held indoors in 14 different sites, among them the National Theater, the Dance Theater, Theater 1887 and the Me...

La Traviata the opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi will be on stage in Costa Rica at the Melico Salazar Theater in San José from July 23 through August 1st and with the musical direction of Arthur Fagen (main music director of the Atlanta Opera) and scenic direction of Argentinian José Darío Innella. The National Lyric Company (CLN) announced the nine lyric singers selected for the main and...

Leonora Jimenez, director of Traffic magazine and organizer of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week San José (MBFW) has confirmed the names of five of the ten international designers that will participate in the fifth edition of the event that is scheduled for August 2-5 at the Real Intercontinental Hotel in Escazú. Shantall Lacayo from Nicaragua, Kris Goyri and Alfredo Martínez from Mexico, Karen Da...

The cultural project “Your City, Your Canvas” (Tu Ciudad, Tu Lienzo) which this year chose the Casa del Parque Hostel in San José as the canvas to display urban art, has already selected ten proposals as the finalists for this project. “After an intense analysis process, and with the complexity of having to consider the criteria of all the different advisers of the visual arts project from the ...

(Photo Credit: Fernando Goldoni/Facebook) "Every thirty minutes in Costa Rica, someone arrives to one of the hospitals with a cardiovascular problem, and close to 1,500 Costa Ricans require an open heart surgery every year, although only close to 700 are able to get one", according to data provided by doctor Elliot Garita from the International Heart Foundation (Fundación Internacional del Corazó...

Skeletal remains of Mesoamerican Indians with artificial cranial deformations and filed teeth, and who settled in Costa Rica centuries ago, are being exhibited to the public for the first time since their discovery near the Pacific coast in the northern part of the country. The temporary Jade Museum exhibition "Life and Death in the Jicaro Valley, Culebra Bay," dates the arrival of these settle...

The fifth edition of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week San José is already scheduled for August 2 through August 5 and like in previous years it will take place at the Real Intercontinental Hotel in Escazú. Artistic show Chapter One (Video below) will open up the event on August 2 with the participation of national and international fashion designers. Jennifer Lang , Fabrizzio Berrocal, Daniel...

“Two Mundos” is the name of the exhibit that will be inaugurated in New York’s exclusive gallery reGeneration Furniture and that will be inaugurated Monday, May 22 and will be open to the public through June 15. This exhibit will showcase the talent of Costa Rican Gabriela Valenzuela-Hirsh and works by a group of Costa Rican designers and some foreigners with many years of living in the country...

Cultural project  “Your City, Your Canvas” (Tu Ciudad, Tu Lienzo) is an initiative that works towards bringing more visibility to several metropolitan spaces through the use of urban art. “Your City, Your Canvas” started out in 2015 with a mural in the south wall of the Magaly Movie Theater in Barrio La California, and last year it was responsible for the new look of the Presidente Hotel in dow...

The Art City Tours in Costa Rica continue to gain popularity, these events started out in February of 2010 and adds already 44 editions; this May 10 will be the third edition this year, titled “Chepe de Moda” (“Chepe In-Style” Chepe is how locals refer to the city of San José). Wide cultural offers invite nationals and foreigners to learn more about the art and culture of San José, a city ofte...

The Paradise Tattoo Convention will take place today and through Sunday, May 7, at the Pedregal Event Center in San Antonio de Belén, Heredia. This is the sixth edition of the convention that will bring together more than 100 national and international tattoo artists, musicians and body modification artists. The organization made a cultural alliance with the Central Bank Museums, the Jade Mu...

The XV edition of the International Festival of the Arts has been set for June 29 through July 9, eleven days in which San José, Costa Rica fills with art in its different forms bringing it closer to the people. The major of San José, Johnny Araya and the Minister of Culture Sylvie Durán officially announced the dates and the activities the FIA will offer this year. “This edition was though...

The Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center will offer a course on the life and work of Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) better known for his detailed engravings and the contemporary language of his paintings. Classes will be imparted by art historian Flor Gallardo in four sessions every Friday in May, beginning May 5th and through May 26th, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. These se...

Costa Rican short film Selva (Jungle) will compete in a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival; while the film Entonces Nosotros (About Us) earned four nominations in the Milan International Film Festival. Selva (Jungle): Directed by Sofía Quirós, this 17 minute short film aspires to two awards at the International Critics’ Week, the oldest parallel competitive section of the Cannes F...