Curious silhouettes are installed in Luján neighborhood

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The neighbors of neighborhood Luján were surprised by the visit of a group of enigmatic silhouettes that were installed in one of the walls of the old Dos Pinos building.

These curious figures – that besides projecting their shadow in the street– form part of the artistic intervention of the Costa Rican artist Susana Sánchez.

Her work is part of the project "In the street", that has been developed since 2006 by the Museum of Art and Contemporary Design (MADC) which invites artists to do creative interventions in public spaces of San José.

A white wall, of six meters long for three meters high, has become the canvas where several figures of black color symbolize the perennial tracks that leave the inhabitants of the cities in different urban spaces. Each one of the silhouettes reflects its shadow in the street.

The artist plants the silhouettes as tracks of human beings in a city. "If the walls, the streets, the banks, the parks or the buildings could speak, they would have many interesting stories that reveal the life in the metropolises", affirmed Sánchez.

The uniform silhouettes looks forward at himself, just as hundreds of pedestrians who cross among their own silhouettes every day in the urban streets.

While Sánchez and other collaborators worked in their artwork, passer-bys and neighbors approached to observe closely the visiting silhouettes. "I like a lot of what they’re doing, it’s pretty. The walls are seen prettier with these shapes than with all the graffiti that was once before", said little María Milagro, a nine year old girl who lives just in front of the wall that was painted.

The artist will also carry out an intervention in the park of the Mexico neighborhood, the 28th of October. This time, the silhouettes will be done with vinyl adhesive and they will be "seated" on the seats in the park.

Coffee quintal reached its better price in 12 months

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The coffee quintal reached this past Tuesday its best price in the past twelve months: $144, 45.

Guido Vargas, president of the Icafé, attributed this upward trend due to the decrease of the world production of grain, especially that of countries as Brazil, the main exporter.

"The cellars of the toasters (in the consuming countries) diminished their stock of the grain; and the silos of the producers aren’t with a lot of coffee. Gourmet coffee has been scarce and that would explain the prices that see now", reasoned Vargas.

The experts recognized that Costa Rica has known to take advantage of this scarcity before, especially because the country is exporting this 2009-2010 more grain than during the period 2008-2009, according to estimations of Icafé.

To date, our country has exported 900,000 quintals; this is a 40% of the total of the production of the current period, reckoned in 2.26 million faneas of coffee in fruit.

Both experts indicated that the country achieved to date a price average accumulated of $150.70 by quintal, little more than $6 above the major registered daily price.

The president of Icafé was emphatic in indicating that the quotation above the $140 has given the sector a breath, since five years ago, a quintal was sold as low as $60.

In Costa Rica there are 55,000 producers and 200,000 people that are benefited from this activity.

Monumental work beautifies duty-free zone in Alajuela

Taken from: www.nacion.com

In the main entrance to the duty-free zone of El Coyol of Alajuela a monumental sculpture receives the visitors and invites them to think on the balance that should exist among human beings, technology and natural wealth.

The artwork, “Toward the future in harmony with nature” is a sculpture carried out by Costa Rican artist Édgar Zúñiga and designed especially for that space.

With 13 meters in height and 12 meters wide, the piece is a sculptural assembly comprising a base of concrete in which three iron columns raise themselves.

"The work is located in a place that promotes technological development. That is why it encloses a message on the need that technology must respect nature if we plan to benefits for humanity", explained Zúñiga, who had already placed a three-piece sculpture in the interior gardens of the industrial complex. As it was commented by the artist, the concept behind its work is supported in an integral vision of life and the universe.

The monument expresses in a poetic and abstract manner the complex plot of life and society. The base of the assembly is a concrete ramp shaped with organic forms that take you back to the land, the trees or the caves.

The gray cement one is sprinkled with some reddish tones that reinforce the earthly link. Near an end to the ramp there is located a concrete sphere of and a stainless steel bucket intertwined among itself.The ramp, which begins in the ground, displaces itself in ascending direction toward the infinite as a metaphor of the connection between the cosmos and the planet that we inhabit.

On the concrete platform rest three iron columns which have different heights and are united among themselves by small blocks that give the sensation that they float in the air.

INBio manages to reproduce Costa Rican frogs in danger of extinction

Taken from: www.nacion.com

Scientists of the National Institute of Biodiversity (INBio) managed to reproduce in its installations an arboreal

frog species that is on the verge of extinction in the country. This achievement, which intends to save to this species of its disappearance, is a project that has been in the works for a while now.

The amphibian in question is Agalychnis annae, a native species of Costa Rica that is known for its black eyes with orange and lemon green skin –with thin blue stripes in the sides of its womb–.

This is a nocturnal frog that can measure up to eight centimeters and feeds off insects and leaves.

Some 20 years ago, these frogs were very common in all the Central Valley and the mountain range of Tilarán and that of Talamanca. Nevertheless, studies showed that since 1990 the population of this species has been reduced by 50%, and they survive barely in coffee plantations and gardens of San José.

In INBio, located in Santo Domingo de Heredia, already they have reproduced 100 tadpoles and 28 young frogs. The last amphibians are protected in a reservoir prepared by the INBio so that they may free the specimens.

The first thing that the INBio caused was to create a small artificial humid tropical forest.

This species is characterized for placing its eggs under the tip of large leaves. These eggs are stored in a gelatinous mass with some 100 eggs. At the moment of the spawning, the scientists extracted the leaves with the eggs that were shown to the general public and they transferred them to a laboratory.

During a week, the small eggs began transform themselves into tadpoles and little by little these began to fall into the water, 60 days later the tadpoles become into small frogs.

The step of tadpoles to small frogs was followed closely by the specialists, who fed the small animals with live insects, crushed leaves, humid trunks, dog food, fish and turtle food. They changed the water every two days.

The experts say that they will continue working in the reproduction of this species and will evaluate the possibility of carrying out a cultivation of other amphibian species in danger of extinction.