Celebrating the "Fiesta Mayor" is a tradition in the neighborhoods of Barcelona.

Despite the limitations, the Raval neighborhood, the neighborhood with the highest percentage of migrant population in the city, celebrated its annual festival over the weekend. Amid the celebration, the first edition of the 'Festival Furiasia' was held, an artistic showcase of the Asian-descendant community. Among theater, music, poetry and dance, attendees gathered to listen to the voices of the many Asian diasporas.

The Asian population in Cataluña represents 5% of the total foreign population, not to mention the children of Asian immigrants, who find themselves in between their traditional culture and the culture of their city of birth. In this sense, Furiasia was born as an initiative to make visible and value the creations of artists from the Asian diasporas, especially the Filipino, Pakistani, Indian, Japanese and Chinese — communities that coexist in large percentage in the Raval neighborhood and continue to be among the least represented in the city. 

The performing arts festival of the Asian diasporas was scheduled to take place in February of this year, but due to the health crisis, it had to wait until the summer to debut in Barcelona. In addition to the prepared activities and invited artists, the event held workshops both online and in-person. 

The young artists of the collective challenged and questioned racial hierarchies, the neocolonial system, gender categories, referents in the art world and the construction of the historical and social imaginary of what is understood as "oriental." Among the artists who participated in representation of the Asian community were the actress Sònia Masuda, the poet Paloma Chen, the dancer Junyi Sun, and the playwright and audiovisual producer Berjer Capati.

The event, organized by the Catàrsia association, an artistic-political collective of the Asian-descendant community in Catalonia, was held in collaboration with the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona and took place in the vicinity of the CCCB.