From Temple to Ashes: PichiAvo’s Per ofrenar Burns at Fallas Valencia 2026

Posted by Donna on 25th March, 2026
Filed under: From the Street

Flames consumed the temple in minutes… On March 19, during La Cremà, PichiAvo’s Per ofrenar (“To Offer”) completed its final act at Fallas de Valencia 2026, collapsing from a carefully constructed monument into fire, smoke, and ash.

What stood for days as a site of balance and reflection was transformed into a fleeting, collective spectacle, marking the culmination of a year-long process.

Commissioned by the Borrull-Socors neighbourhood and presented in the Experimental Fallas category, the installation offered a refined and conceptual interpretation of the centuries-old tradition, where monumentality meets ephemerality.

Installed at Borrull Street 31 in central Valencia, Per ofrenar took the form of an Ionic temple inspired by the Temple of Athena Nike in Athens. Constructed using traditional fallas materials including wood and paper, the structure reflected a deliberate return to craft and artisanal processes. The monument was realised in collaboration with master fallero artisan Paco Ribes.

At the heart of the installation, an altar composed of surplus paper from the production of PichiAvo’s publication Our Odyssey supported a precisely balanced sculptural scale. Two wax candles sat in equilibrium, one representing Classical Art and the other Graffiti. Produced in collaboration with Barcelona-based Cerabella, this central gesture articulated the duo’s ongoing exploration of dialogue between historical artistic canons and contemporary urban expression.

Rather than positioning these traditions in opposition, Per ofrenar proposed a space of coexistence. The work reflected PichiAvo’s distinctive visual language, where Greco-Roman iconography and graffiti aesthetics converge, extending their practice into a more architectural and symbolic dimension.

Over the course of the festival, the monument evolved through public interaction. Visitors contributed offerings using the same paper from which the structure was built, leaving messages and markings that gradually transformed its surface. In its final days, the temple became a living canvas, absorbing gestures that echoed the immediacy of graffiti.

The project was awarded First Prize in the Sustainable Fallas category and Third Prize in the Experimental Fallas category, acknowledging both its ecological approach and conceptual strength.

In keeping with the traditions of the Fallas festival, the burning was not an end but a completion. The act returned the work to its origins, echoing the festival’s roots in the ritual burning of materials as an offering.

This project builds on PichiAvo’s longstanding relationship with Fallas. In 2019, the duo created the main falla monument for the City of Valencia, a 26-metre-high structure installed in the city’s central square.

With Per ofrenar, PichiAvo once again embrace the tension between permanence and disappearance, allowing the work to exist fully in its final transformation.