web de la Exposición Universal de Sevilla 1992

INTERVIEW WITH... JUAN MANUEL SUÁREZ JAPÓN.
Manager for the acts of the Expo'92 10th Anniversary

Expo92.net: Which was the impression from your first visit to the Expo?

Commissary: Really my first visit, an unforgettable moment, I don't consider it when the Expo was already inaugurated, but rather it was much before, in September of 1990. For that time I was Consultant of Culture. I will never forget the miracle that there was worked. It was an old place, full with rubbles and brashes. It was necessary to put many hopes to transform that place into what finally has been. I also remember the day of inauguration. That is also an unforgettable moment of my life; when I saw that smoke of colors leaving from the Cartuja's chimneys I sincerely wanted to toss some tear.

E: Which was the first pavilion you visited?

C: I didn't really have time of visiting many pavilions, more than anything for protocol questions and quantity of work due to my position. I do remember that April 20th I only could be, and already at night, in the Pavilion of Andalusia, accompanied by my family and watching the beautiful Show of the Lake for the first time. That image of the Expo at night, illuminated for the first time, it is something that will remain in my memory until I die. When I had something of free time I went for my walks for the enclosure and visited some pavilions.

E: Did you prove some type of unknown food for you until the moment?

C: I am a little special foe those things. My brother, if at all, is the one most attracted by that type of things. For the food I am a very traditional person. Neither I had too many opportunities to enter in many restaurants.

E: What objectives have stayed in the road for the commemoration of the Anniversary?

C: Good, there are things that have not been possible to recover for these dates, it is the case of the monorail or the telecabine. Keep in mind that I arrived to this position in March of the present year, and that I have had to leave almost from zero. There were projects but all were verbal agreements. Opening the Pavilion of the Navigation will cost us a wad of money; in the first place, because the owner company has not used it in many years, and the adaptation is something that will depend on us; in second place, the contribution of the contents that is also something quite expensive. We are not looking for something attractive neither celebrations to the big thing. As I have said many times, and I don't want to make a mistake, it is a commemoration looking toward the future.

E: The access to the one denominated "Space Anniversary" will be free?

C: Yes, except to the Movimax cinema, because although we have reached an agreement with Magic Island for the projection of "Winds of Spain" and "Seville Experience", it is an internal question of them, and therefore it would be necessary to pay, although it would be something apart of the entrance to the park. The rest, either the Pavilion of the Navigation like the Future, run of our bill. After all personnel's expense is in fact something smaller.

E: When the Mayor called you to tell that he had thought of you as substitute of Guillermo Gutiérrez, did you accept the position immediately? How did everything happen?

C: No, I didn't accept to the moment. I remember that the Mayor called me one afternoon to speak with me. I left to Almeria for some chats in Aguadulce. He asked me if we could see each other the following day, but I told him that I was not able to because I left of trip and it would take in returning some days. Then he told me that he wanted to request me a please, and it is that he had thought of me as commissary of the 10th Anniversary after Guillermo Gutierrez's march. I was three days giving turns to the head deciding an answer. More than anything because it was the month of March, and to those heights I could not leave my students of the University without a professor. I consulted then if it was possible the compatibility of the positions and they told me that yes. Then was when I consented to occupy this position. Unfortunately later they have not admitted me that it continues imparting classes while I'm here.

E: Do you have any relationship with Guillermo Gutiérrez?

C: Of course. Guillermo and me know each other from 1986, when we were deputies in the Andalusian Parliament. From then I have had a good friendship with him. In fact, after accepting Commissary's position I have consulted him several times on how to continue his work and, it is more, he has been here three times of visit and we have been talking how's it going

E: What do you all seek to change with the commemoration of the 10th Anniversary?

C: We don't seek to change anything. Simply it is a debt with the city and an excellent moment to demonstrate that Seville has known how to take advantage of the resources granted then. It is an unbeatable occasion to say that here the wild flowers doesn't grow. In this technological park there is employment for 7.500 people. Representatives of cities that were headquarters have come or they are candidates to celebrate exhibitions to know first hand how there is you reusing this enclosure, because for them the Expo'92 and what is at the present time is a reusing example. The great majority of the parcels has owner, and if they are not busy, are in point of build.

E: The past February 24 Antonio Burgos wrote in his column: «...has come the professor Suárez Japón. We are winning. (...) It is as it of Pellón, but the other way around: as if after Pellón had come Olivencia. (...) If in this anniversary there is very little that to take place, let us celebrate commissary's appointment at least.

C: The truth is that Antonio Burgos is a person to which I appreciate a lot. I know him for enough time and we always have had very good times ourselves, more than anything for that curious duality that we maintain both between Seville and Cádiz. He has always behaved very well with me.

E: What would you respond to those who think that this commemoration is a political or partisan act?

C: I would tell them that they are completely mistaken. I don't come here on behalf of anybody. It is certain that I have been Consultant of Culture with the Socialist Party. I take affiliated for 37 years. I am proud that our city is governed by this party and I hope that it follows this way, but at all I come here to make apology of nothing. The commemoration of the 10th Anniversary is an act so that the sevilians come closer to the Island, see what there is here and understand what the Expo'92 meant for Seville and what it has become.

E: Will we know what it will happen with the abandoned assets?

C: It is a question that I believe it doesn't really correspond me. Rather that is matter of Agesa. We have to head ourselves in making something modest that serves to evoke to the sevilians and that they all participate.

E: But wouldn't it be a good opportunity to claim the reutilization of those assets? Also, they should take advantage of that now there is a sevilian minister again.

C: Indeed, it would be a very opportune moment. But it is something that doesn't depend on me. It is certain that many assets they could recover, but the Police station of the 10th Anniversary is quite independent of that, there practically we cannot make anything.

E: Many tourists that get in the buses of panoramic visits and they go by the Cartuja use to get a great deception when they see so many demolished buildings and brashes. Is it necessary to wash the face to the enclosure?

C: In the first place, I would tell to those in charge of these visits that should be devoted to explain well and with a little more than depth what there is in the Cartuja Island. They cannot think that the Expo is still going on, the same as in the 92. The Cartuja has suffered a change and now it is a technological park; that is what they have to understand; managers and tourists. In second place, yes it would be necessary a little the cleaning of the enclosure. It is not a very inhabited place, but it is taken in care.

E: Will you reconcile the dream the night of September 15th of this year?

C: If you end up me to ask this question a couple of months ago I would have told you flatly that no. As I hav just told you, when I arrived I had to leave from nothing, without a visible program. We have made what we have been able to do in this small space of time and I am happy of what has been gotten. The program is practically closed, we have just signed a new exhibition where more than hundred of companies installed in Cartuja'93 will take part in, and we have the participation of Magic Island, the City council and other private entities. Certainly the night of April 20 I could not sleep a lot. Now I have a little more of tranquility, because although everything is almost closed, there are always fringes to solve.