Cultural

Venezuelan popular artist Luis Mariano Rivera was born on August 19, 1906. His music is a tribute to life and a commitment to his community’s identity and cultural sovereignty. Rivera’s works remind us that when a people sow their land and tell their stories, they become resistant to oppression and invincible against foreign domination.

A brief and affectionate profile

In the fertile and sunny lands of eastern Venezuela, specifically in the lush village of Canchunchú in Bermúdez Municipality, Sucre State, Luis Mariano Rivera was born on August 19, 1906, 120 years ago. His life was shaped by the rural realities of this area, which combined the abundance of nature with the profound inequalities of a latifundista-dominated agrarian economy.

His childhood was marked by early orphanhood and farm labor. Far from leading to resentment or resignation, this experience shaped in Rivera a loving and vital sensibility that allowed him to dismantle traditional notions of property and patriarchal-landowner hierarchy, enabling him to identify with the land, plants, and animals that surrounded him. This connection to the land enriched his imagination, and his extended family ultimately came to encompass the entire territory.

Rivera’s creative work blossomed after he turned 48. A self-taught musician, poet, and playwright, he composed his first verses using the Venezuelan four-stringed cuatro guitar as his primary instrument. His artistic output became an act of defiance that placed elements dismissed by the dominant culture at the center of Venezuelan poetry: local biodiversity, manual labor, trees, fruits, and wildlife.

Through his popular theater plays and musical compositions, Rivera portrayed a cosmogony in which nature is not merely a resource to be exploited, but a subject with rights to be loved and respected.

Although he never joined any political party nor sought public office, his approach to life and art constitutes a profound political statement. In a Caribbean and Venezuelan context where the neocolonial oil rentier model displaced agricultural production and fueled the exodus from the countryside to the city, Rivera’s insistence on staying in Canchunchú and singing about rural life was a clear act of resistance.

His politics were rooted in pacifism, fraternity, and love for the land. In the face of the metastasizing commodification of life, he prioritized the ethics of care, respect for natural cycles, and community solidarity. Various artists of national and international renown, including Alí Primera, Lilia Vera, Cecilia Todd, Soledad Bravo, Gualberto Ibarreto, and Morella Muñoz, performed his songs, transforming his local message into a banner of continental identity. Alí Primera, in particular, saw Rivera as a beacon of popular dignity, celebrating his ability to transform everyday rural life into revolutionary and loving poetry.

Luis Mariano Rivera passed away on March 15, 2002, in Carúpano, Sucre State, at the age of 95, after nearly a century devoted to cultivating the poetry of life, simplicity, and affection. His legacy is recognized as a symbol of the musical identity that flows directly from the harmonious relationship with the land and the wisdom of the people.

Sound, memory, and collective identity

In many of the ancestral cultures of Abya Yala, sound is part of the creation myth of the women and men who originally inhabited these territories. For all of humanity, sounds have played an important role in the formation of identities. Languages and music stem from this very relationship and our need to connect, to name ourselves, and to determine our own destinies.

Every landscape has its own sonority. In other words, a set of sounds that form its geohistory. This includes our ways of speaking and our music, but also the sounds of the wind, the rain, the sea, the river, birds, insects. In short, all the sounds of life expressing itself, as well as the sounds of human inventions that are now part of our daily lives.

Within this spectrum, there are human beings who manage to connect the sounds of past, present, and future memories to bequeath a sonic identity that transcends the purely artistic realm, becoming the very landscape narrated in their poetry. Luis Mariano Rivera is an example of this transcendental audacity to place oneself beyond time with a unique music.

At the age of 48, driven by the desire to express himself without relying on others to write his letters and thoughts, he taught himself to read and write. Already in his mature years, he began composing verses, parrandas, merengues, and eastern joropos through which he paid tribute to the flora, fauna, and everyday life of his village.

Rivera’s remarkable sensitivity stems from his direct observation of the countryside. His lyrics preserve idioms, sayings, and oral expressions from eastern Venezuela that would otherwise have been lost. Long before the rise of globalized environmental movements, his songs already championed the balance between humans, wildlife, and flora from a local, community-based, and decolonizing perspective. Rivera’s legacy transcends mere musical composition; he represents a defense of communal life and a living example of how it is possible to reclaim one’s own history to create sounds that cement collective identity.

For him, Canchunchú was not merely a geographical reference point, but the center of the world. By singing about his village and embracing rural daily life as a symbol of belonging with a claim to universality, he created an affective geohistory that recognized the dignity of life as equivalent to that of the cherry, the guácara [snail], and the mango. He showed to his community that their own reality is worthy of being celebrated and sung about. As such, his work did not stem from ego. It was born out of the village’s celebrations and gatherings, and like collective knowledge, it has no other purpose than enjoyment and the strengthening of collective unity.

Singing honestly about one’s own village, honoring the vernacular of one’s community without resorting to artificial language, taught us a sense of pride in our ways of feeling, understanding, and reasoning. 

Rivera’s music, paraphrasing Alí Primera, grounds us in our own land, with the profound simplicity of one who surrenders to the magnitude of the surrounding beauty. His deep connection to his native Canchunchú never served as chauvinistic isolation or picturesque folklorism. Rather, it was a gateway to the human condition prior to the violent irruption of Western capitalist modernity, with its imposition of individuality, the commodification of nature, and linear progress, at the expense of communal memory. Rivera’s work operates in the opposite direction: it reconnects with an organic body of knowledge that does not require academia to be legitimate, because it is engraved in the lived collective experience.

It is no secret to anyone that traditional community music, as well as rural poetry, serves as a means of transmitting memory. It is not mere entertainment. Rhythmic patterns, melodic turns, and poetic meter interact with the biological, agricultural, and communal cycles that humankind has cultivated for millennia.

Rivera did not theorize about nature: he embodied it. His philosophy sprang from working the land, from sweat, and from the sounds of the countryside. It is the knowledge transmitted through the body and emotion, that “communal way of life” that predates modernity and remains a reservoir from which to conceive alternatives to capitalism, fascism, imperialism, and Zionism.

True universality does not consist in erasing differences under a single mold with domineering hegemonic pretensions, but rather in reaching our very roots. When we reaffirm the dignity of our communities, we validate the “peripheries” as the center of our own worldviews without the need for external recognition.

Rivera demonstrates that the periphery is a center in and of itself by stripping away the pretensions of colonial modernity. His music taps into the common core of humanity: the wonder of being alive, communal solidarity, and respect for the sacred meaning of life. And this is not a nostalgic gaze toward the past, but rather a reservoir of meaning and hope for the present. It reminds us that beneath the veneer of modernity, the human species remains hardwired to come together, celebrate, and sustain communities.

Finally, Rivera’s production is above all an expression of love. Love toward the full life experience. But when a poet sings about love, it is usually limited to romantic love, or heartbreak in the absence of corresponding feelings. Nevertheless, Rivera did count on a “spiritual companion,” to use his own words: Maximina Marsella, known as La Negra Marsella and whom he affectionately called “la negra,” in what is a very common expression in Venezuela. She was presented as the only woman capable of understanding his silences and his late passion for words. He dedicated many love verses to her, expressing how they shared feelings and devotion for the small things in life and the land.

Writing our own history and cultural sovereignty

The act by which a dispossessed individual reclaims control over the written word is, in essence, an act of sociopolitical liberation. For Luis Mariano Rivera, the decision to learn to read and write on his own as an adult was not merely a matter of functional education or an attempt to conform to bourgeois standards. It represented taking control of his own narrative and a fundamental reaffirmation of his personal and communal sovereignty. In a system dominated by the colonialism of knowledge, where official writing has historically functioned as a mechanism of subordination and administrative control, mastering the alphabet from the campesino perspective means dismantling the monopoly on truth. Rivera lucidly understood that mastering the written code granted him the historical ability to cease being a passive subject, an object of study in folklorism, and become the chronicler and philosopher of his own time. He ceased to be narrated by others and assumed authorship of his territorial memory.

This literacy and poetic endeavor took place against a profoundly adverse historical backdrop. Throughout the twentieth century, Venezuela underwent a traumatic transformation driven by the emergence of the neocolonial oil enclave. Urban modernization advanced aggressively through its ideological and economic strategy of marginalizing the countryside, dismantling traditional community structures, and promoting rural depopulation in favor of slums in the major cities.

The extraction of hydrocarbons by transnational corporations tied to the geopolitical interests of US and European imperialism came alongside an overwhelming wave of cultural propaganda. This ideological penetration sought to impose the American consumerist lifestyle, eroding peasant identity and dismissing local agriculture as synonymous with backwardness and savagery. Venezuela, which was barely emerging from the devastating aftermath of the war of independence and successive nineteenth-century insurrections, revolutions, and civil wars stoked by local elites and foreign capital, saw its food sovereignty and historical memory shaken.

Amid this landscape of alienation, where the country was rapidly transforming into a consumerist, import-dependent enclave, Rivera’s insistence on remaining in his Canchunchú valley and singing about the communal way of life was not a nostalgic or folkloric retreat, but rather a deeply political and assertive affirmation of cultural re-existence.

He sang with such transparent and loving clarity that his powerful message took root in the national collective imagination, ethically reframing the traditions, sufferings, joys, and experiences of campesinos in eastern Venezuela. Against the aesthetics of waste and the logic of neocolonial dispossession, he countered with the ethics of care and the sacredness of everyday life. His compositions served as a mechanism for preserving historical memory: he warned against the collective amnesia regarding the communal way of life driven by the discourse of developmental modernity; he championed food sovereignty in the face of dependence on the globalizing market; he dignified rural labor in the face of urban prejudice, revealing the profound ecological philosophy inherent in popular knowledge. But, moreover, his profound poetic work demonstrates that true national sovereignty is more than just the defense of natural resources or borders. It requires the preservation of the collective soul, the dignity of the living word, and the self-determination of the people’s power.

Luis Mariano Rivera’s life journey teaches us that decolonization is not achieved solely through theoretical confrontation or bellicose rhetoric, but above all through an organic connection to the land and the community. By recognizing himself through his own voice, he prevented imperialist corporations and the oil industry’s maelstrom from erasing the humanity of his surroundings. His music endures as an indestructible testament to cultural sovereignty: living proof that a people who remember their roots, cultivate their land, and tell their own stories become resilient in the face of modern oppressions and invincible against any attempt at external domination.

Fabiola José is a Venezuelan singer. She has performed in countries across South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Her singles and albums are available on all digital platforms. She hosted and produced “Cantante y Sonante” for Radio Nacional de Venezuela. In 2018–2019, she created a series of videos for social media, published on her YouTube channel #HechoEnCasa. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Music from IUDEM, Caracas (2005); specialized under Maestro Tom Krause in Spain (2007); and an M.A. in Arts and Cultures of the South from UNEARTE, Venezuela (2020).

Fidel Barbarito is a Venezuelan musician and researcher, with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and history, respectively. He teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs at the National Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE). Together with Fabiola José, he promotes several musical projects aimed at disseminating traditional repertoires, integrating them with contemporary compositions inspired by these sounds. Joropo llanero. Parranda de reexistencia is one of his published essays.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, Aug. 12 (UPI) — The Korea Heritage Service announced Wednesday that Jeju Island’s Darangshi Cave was under final consideration for registration as a national cultural heritage site, highlighting its importance in exposing the government’s role in an early Cold War-era massacre and catalyzing a decades-long truth and reconciliation movement.

The cave was discovered on Dec. 22, 1991, in Jeju’s northeastern Sehwa village by researchers investigating the Jeju Massacre, the slaughter of some 30,000 islanders from 1947-54 mainly by government forces in an effort to snuff out a communist uprising. Inside were the remains of 11 people, including three women and a 9-year-old boy, local villagers who were hiding from the government’s scorched-earth operations of 1948.

The Korea Heritage Service described the site in a statement as being of “considerable academic value as a vivid historical location of the Jeju 4.3 Incident because it served as a catalyst for the movement to uncover the truth about the incident, became widely known to the general public through media coverage, and preserves much of the original form of the refuge.”

In the fall and winter of 1948-49, government forces under the government of newly inaugurated President Syngman Rhee conducted a scorched-earth campaign through Jeju’s mid-mountain region. Under an October order, all but a 5-kilometer band of the island’s coast was prohibited and anyone found within that quarantine zone would be considered a rebel and shot on sight.

On Dec. 18, 1948, residents of Hado and Jongdal villages were living inside Darangshi Cave when it was discovered by punitive forces. Fires were lit at the cave’s mouth and all inside asphyxiated.

Thousands of islanders fleeing government repression took to hiding in the mountains and were killed during the four-month scorched-earth operation. Hundreds of villages in the zone were razed, many never to be restored. For decades after, public discussion of the state’s responsibility was suppressed while families of victims and survivors were forced to live stigmatized as communists and communist sympathizers.

After the cave was publicized, the government sealed its entrance and forced the families of the victims to cremate the bodies of their loved ones who were found inside, and to scatter their ashes at sea.

The discovery of the cave is considered a watershed moment in literally unearthing the truth of the Jeju Massacre and galvanizing a truth movement that would culminate in President Roh Moo-hyun offering Jeju an official state apology on Oct. 31, 2003.

Ko Chang-hoon, a retired professor at Jeju National University, was the head of the Jeju 4.3 Research Institute at the time when it discovered the cave. He told UPI that he and his team publicized the cave’s discovery on April 2, 1992, so reports would be published in newspapers the following day, the 44th anniversary of the start of the massacre.

The discovery of Darangshi Cave was “the cornerstone” of the movement, he said.

Compared to other massacres and incidents of state violence, the Jeju Massacre had little evidence up until that point that the majority of the deaths were committed by the government, he said.

“It is a first as a whole document,” he said.

According to a statement from the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, artifacts illustrating the circumstances at the time and what life in hiding from government forces was like remain in the cave, while the area around it has been transformed in recent years into a site of education and remembrance.

The province last year applied to the Korea Heritage Service to register the cave as a National Registered Cultural Heritage propertty after it obtained approval from the provincial Cultural Heritage Committee.

“Darangshi Cave is a historic site that bears the pain of residents seeking refuge and being killed en masse during Jeju 4.3,” Kim In-young, director general of Jeju Province’s Special Self-Governing Administration Bureau, said in a statement.

“We will actively cooperate with the Korea Heritage Service so that, following the Suak Garrison Post, it can become the second Jeju 4.3 site to be formally registered as National Registered Cultural Heritage.”

The Suak Garrison Post used in operations against communist guerrillas was designated in 2018.

The Korea Heritage Service will seek to register Darangshi Cave as national cultural heritage after a 30-day notice period to collect public opinions on the registration.

For Ko, who was among those who helped find the cave and make it nationally known, this recognition is “very, very important,” he said.

Why go now?

A thin peninsula just south of Rotterdam’s centre, Katendrecht was once at the heart of the world’s busiest port, home to continental Europe’s first Chinatown and a lively sailors’ quarter. Its later reputation as a red light district has been shrugged off – part of the city’s wider reinvention in the aftermath of extensive second world war bombing.

Still Europe’s largest port, Rotterdam’s maritime history is very much evident today, with the former headquarters of the Holland-America Line now a hotel just a short hop across the Rijnhaven Bridge. The 2012 opening of this pedestrian and bicycle bridge finally connected cut-off Katendrecht to Wilhelminapier, which was a jumping off point for transatlantic migration, and is today a major cruise terminal, with more than 100 ships departing every year.

The opening of the Fenix museum of migration last year and the reopening of the Nederlands Fotomuseum in a new location here in February have accelerated Katendrecht’s rise in status, following on from the entrepreneurs and creatives who have introduced craft breweries, food halls and design boutiques in recent years.

Former warehouses have been transformed – into the aforementioned museums among other venues – and a lively cultural and arts scene has grown as the neighbourhood has seen new residents rediscover the formerly downtrodden area.

With more big construction projects under way, Katendrecht will be transformed further over the next five years, with apartments, shops, a five-star hotel, an urban beach and, notably, the Rotterdam Centre for Dance, Danshuis, on the horizon.

Where to eat and drink

Deliplein is the place to begin – the tree-lined square lies at the heart of the old sailors’ quarter and houses more than 20 restaurants and bars. Originally home to the first Chinese restaurant in the Netherlands, Delistraat is buzzing from morning to night.

Start at Jordy’s Bakery, where flaky pastries, vegan muffins, sourdough sandwiches and speciality coffees will fuel you for the morning. Across the road in the Fenix atrium, O: Anatolian Café is run by the Michelin-starred chef Maksut Aşkar; on the menu are all-day Turkish breakfasts, meze platters, sandwiches and salads at extremely reasonable prices.

Kaapse Brouwers in the Fenix Food Factory is where the post-work crowd heads. Sit on the terrace, admire the waterfront view and explore its range of more than 20 craft beers on tap – from Belgian blonds and New England IPAs to pilsners and sours. And back on Delistraat, Café de Ouwehoer is a classic old-style pub with a nod to the area’s past – and a huge range of whiskeys to boot.

A few doors down, finish your evening at the small but perfectly formed fine-dining establishment De Matroos en Het Meisje (The Sailor and the Girl), which offers a changing daily menu. With the option of choosing from four to six courses, dependent on season and produce, dishes could be charred carrot, cured Japanese fish, creme fraiche and onion, or chicken breast with mushroom beurre blanc, blackberries and crisped rice.

Cultural experiences

Fenix is the obvious first stop. Funded by the philanthropic foundation Droom en Daad (Dream and Do), the museum of immigration opened last May in a renovated historic warehouse and finally gave Katendrecht a real focal point for visitors.

Formerly part of the world’s largest warehouse for cargo transfer, the museum reflects the fact that millions of migrants arrived at and departed from the port in search of a new life. At its heart is the Tornado, a spectacular mirrored spiral staircase, which offers 360-degree views across the neighbourhood, docks and the city. It symbolises the central theme, with architect Ma Yansong describing it as “a metaphor for the journeys of migrants”.

The industrial space is used sparingly to display photography, art and sculpture that communicate the experience of immigration, movement and displacement of peoples. It’s humbling and moving. The exhibition All Directions features more than 100 artists, with stories of the war in Kyiv and refugee camps in Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as a lifesize New York bus made from fabric.

The Family of Migrants exhibition showcases more than 200 photos from around the world, depicting the story of migration from the late 19th century to the present day. And the Suitcase Labyrinth has about 2,000 donated cases, dating from 1898 to today, with 30 audio stories detailing the unique past of some of them.

Farther down the waterfront, the newly opened Nederlands Fotomuseum is also in a renovated warehouse – formerly used to store coffee from Brazil – and is topped with a modern anodised aluminium structure. Inside, the exposed brick, rough-edged concrete and steel girders offer a striking contrast to the impressive photography on display.

The original museum opened in 2003, and the collection now comprises more than six million negatives, transparencies, prints, photo albums and other archival matter – visitors are encouraged to look in the depots and studios. Every week, thousands of images are digitised and made available online, while old and damaged photography is conserved and restored.

On the first floor, the Gallery of Honour of Dutch Photography showcases 99 distinguished photographs, selected by a group of experts, spanning 1842 to the digital era. And as you go up the central staircase, which leads all the way to the rooftop restaurant, a mosaic of projected images merely hints at the breadth and depth of photography in storage.

Where to shop

In the Bay House development, close to the Nederlands Fotomuseum, there are a number of designer fashion and vintage furniture stores. Selected With Love has “upcycled” clothing, Caesar sells designer menswear, while The Gallery by Collectors Network is a space for numerous independent dealers selling vintage design pieces – Vintage Hoarder, for example, has 1980s Belgian floor lamps, a 1970s French slate table and 1960s Italian dining chairs.

The museum shops offer the best range of unique purchases. Fenix has items created in collaboration with artists and designers as well as chocolates from Rotterdam, slippers from Greece and tea from small family-run plantations in China.

Don’t miss

Verhalenhuis Belvédère is perhaps the best place to get a sense of where Katendrecht has come from. Dating from 1894, the building was originally a cafe then a jazz club – saved from demolition, it became a cultural centre, community hub and exhibition space in 2009.

As part of its cultural programmes, community meals and storytelling events, Belvédère collects and shares the stories of Rotterdam residents, from the first Cape Verdean migrants to Jewish families and Chinese seafarers.

Where to stay

Of Hotel New York’s 72 rooms, the suites in the former offices of the Holland-America Line’s directors, overlooking the Nieuwe Maas river, and the two tower rooms are the ones to book. Rooms from €110.

On the western tip of Katendrecht, the former cruise ship SS Rotterdam is permanently moored and is now a 254-room hotel that retains much of its original styling, with wood panelling throughout, and the public spaces – bars, restaurants, theatre – are like stepping back in time. Tours are available. Rooms from €73. The five-star Eurostars hotel is expected to open in the autumn, next door to the Nederlands Fotomuseum and right by the Rijnhaven metro station, which connects easily to Rotterdam Centraal train station.

The trip was hosted by the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions

A poll of 2,000 adults who travel abroad found that one in six have committed a cultural faux pas while on holiday – and the top 10 travel mistakes tourists make have been listed

One in six holidaymakers have committed cultural blunders while abroad – including eating with their left hand in South Asia and blowing their nose at the table in China.

A survey of 2,000 adults who travel overseas found 28% of those who have put their foot in it culturally have neglected to cover their shoulders and knees when visiting a place of worship. Meanwhile, 26% have forgotten to tip in North America and 21% have jaywalked there too.

Despite a tendency to make such mistakes, 39% of all those surveyed said experiencing different cultural etiquette is one of the main reasons they choose to travel – particularly to long-haul destinations.

A spokesperson for Riviera Travel, which commissioned the research and offers escorted tours across Europe, Asia and North America, said: “Travel is about embracing the unfamiliar. “These findings show how easily well-meaning holidaymakers can fall foul of local customs, often without realising it.

“Whether it’s understanding dining etiquette, dress codes or local laws, having expert guidance or a well-planned itinerary can give travellers the confidence to explore unfamiliar cultures without the worry of getting it wrong.”

The study revealed 62% have worried about accidentally breaking the law while travelling, while 54% feared coming across as rude without intending to.

A further 42% were concerned about taking photographs somewhere they shouldn’t, while 41% worried about getting religious customs wrong.

To get themselves prepared, 57% research destinations more thoroughly before jetting off. Upon doing so, 31% were taken aback by just how many everyday UK habits are perceived differently abroad.

In particular, 30% found that hand gestures can carry entirely different meanings depending on your location around the globe – such as using the ‘OK’ gesture in Brazil, which is often the equivalent to swearing.

Other no-gos British holidaymakers were oblivious to included the fact that bringing mineral water into Nigeria is forbidden, while commonly available nasal sprays can be restricted in Japan. Camouflage clothing is banned in Barbados and taking bubble gum into Singapore is against local rules.

Eager to avoid becoming the stereotypical “Brit abroad”, 49% modified their behaviour while travelling so they would not be perceived that way. A third had seen another holidaymaker making a cultural mistake, including being rude towards restaurant or hotel staff (52%), speaking too loudly in public (51%) and dressing inappropriately at religious or cultural sites (49%).

If they made a faux pas themselves, 56% would feel embarrassed, 51% apologetic and 30% eager to learn from the experience.

It also emerged 29% of those who worry about social faux pas preferred guided tours or expert advice to ensure they didn’t make a cultural mistake.

Whereas 24% stated being part of a guided group would give them the confidence to explore unfamiliar destinations, and 22% valued the reassurance of travelling with an experienced tour manager.

A spokesperson for Riviera Travel added: “The findings show most travellers are keen to be respectful when they visit somewhere new, even if they occasionally get things wrong. “Being open to different customs and ways of life is one of the most rewarding parts of travel.

“Having the support of local experts, an experienced tour manager, and the reassurance of a guided group provides essential peace of mind.”

TOP 10 CULTURAL BLUNDERS:

1. Not covering up shoulders and knees when visiting places of worship.
2. Not tipping at a restaurant in North America.
3. Jaywalking in America.
4. Eating with your left hand in countries where the right hand is traditionally used for eating.
5. Not removing shoes when entering homes in Canada.
6. Showing up late to an appointment or meeting in Germany.
7. Using the “OK” hand gesture in Brazil.
8. Leaving chopsticks sticking vertically out of the rice in Japan.
9. Pouring your own drink before others in South Korea.
10. Touching someone’s head in Thailand.

My wife and I moved from London to Marseille a little over five years ago when our British passports still conferred “right to reside” in France. That first winter on the beach, in short sleeves, as our daughters played in the topaz-coloured Mediterranean and the sun set across an ever-clear blue sky, I understood why this part of southern France has always been popular with artists.

I was recently speaking about this with the painter Fanny Nushka and her sailor husband, Benoît Bouchet, on the terrace of Café la Muse in Marseille’s “coolest” neighbourhood. She said: “It took a long time to go back to blue. It’s like being in Paris and painting the Eiffel Tower. It’s dangerous to paint the Calanques [limestone coves] as an artist from here.”

We moved to Marseille for the same reason that has attracted countless artists: it’s cheaper to live here. Marseille’s affordability enables Fanny to paint full-time and Benoît to sail without being away from his family for weeks. Benoît runs daily catered cruises on a listed sailing yacht, Le Don du Vent. For €135, you get a taste of Mediterranean luxury with swimming, snorkelling and sunbathing in the unspoiled sea coves around Marseille, pausing briefly for wine and a lunch prepared onboard.

Céline Ghisleri, co-president of Provence Contemporary Art, which represents 62 arts organisations in and around Marseille, tells me the city has always had a dynamic art scene. However, the turning point came when Marseille was named European Capital of Culture in 2013. Since then, large institutions such as Frac Sud, Mac and the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (Mucem) have expanded the city’s offering with bigger exhibitions from more widely recognised artists.

This summer, the Mucem’s exhibitions are Bonnes Mères, a collection of contemporary and historical works on the theme of motherhood, and Clément Cogitore’s fascinating Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère, a body of work centred on the brief existence of a volcanic Mediterranean island. At the end of August, the art fair Art-O-Rama will be hosted at La Friche La Belle de Mai. La Friche (the Wasteland) was a tobacco factory and is now an enormous warren of a multidisciplinary arts centre that is always buzzing, especially in the summer when they set up a movie screen and food trucks on the roof. La Friche is emblematic of the art scene in Marseille: absolute chaos, but somehow it works.

Outside Marseille, Plein Sud, a network of contemporary art organisations between Monaco and Montpellier, produces a guide with travel itineraries. It’s how I discovered the charming Gallifet art centre in nearby Aix-en-Provence, which is only about 40 minutes from Marseille but exists in a completely different universe.

You couldn’t be further away from Marseille’s port city energy than Aix’s daily market at Place Richelme, where you can grab a coffee and, if you are lucky, an outdoor seat at the patisserie and salon de thé Maison Weibel. For lunch, I recommend Drôle d’Endroit (Funny Place). It is tucked down an alley off a sidestreet, but the meals are always pleasing and the atmosphere friendly. Another solid choice is Tita for Levantine street food.

As tiny and quiet as Aix is, it has an abundance of museums, such as the Granet Museum, the Caumont Art Centre and the Vasarely Foundation, but they tend to lean heavily on art that historians have already anointed. For example, it wasn’t until 1984 that the Granet acquired any works by the local boy done good, Cézanne, whose preserved studio is just up the hill.

That’s why it was refreshing to find Gallifet trying something different. The owners, Nicolas Mazet and Kate Davis, have a mission to bring contemporary art to conservative Aix. Located on the ground floor of an 18th-century townhouse, the courtyard’s striking red sculpture of a swimmer mid-stroke, by Diadji Diop, hints that Gallifet is more than just a home (the owners live above the art centre).

This summer’s exhibition features a retrospective of the photographer François Halard, with more than 100 works spanning more than three decades. Until the end of September, Gallifet also hosts a seasonal restaurant and chef’s residency. This year, two Paris-based chefs, Lisa Desforges and Bruno Hammerle, will use Provence’s abundant and delicious ingredients to create menus including entrees such as smoked ricotta gnocchi with peas and a peapod veloute. Gallifet also offers two apartments (from €200 and €160 per night), both decorated with pieces from previous exhibitions and filled with Provençal features such as marble fireplaces and tomette terracotta tiles.

A little further up the Rhône, Avignon nestles against the river, enclosed by preserved medieval walls. The Palais des Papes overlooks the renowned vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape to the north and lavender fields to the south. Each July, the town is taken over by the Avignon festival, one of the oldest performance arts festivals.

After a visit, take a walk along the most picturesque and charming street in Avignon, La Rue Peyrolerie. A winding medieval cobbled alley leads to an equally charming restaurant, L’Épicerie, situated in a square beside a small 14th-century gothic church with an ornately carved walnut-wood door. The cuisine is classic French, served in generous portions by friendly staff. Every time we visit Avignon, we dine here and have never been disappointed, but be warned that the terrace fills up quickly. This is a well-known and well-loved spot among locals. Another safe bet for outdoor courtyard dining is Numéro 75.

The most notable address for contemporary art in Avignon is the Lambert Collection, housed in two stunning 18th-century townhouses, Hôtel de Caumont and Hôtel de Montfaucon. The collection is the legacy of Yvon Lambert, a celebrated gallerist and collector who made his reputation in the latter half of the 20th century championing American artists such as Nan Goldin, Donald Judd, Lawrence Weiner and Cy Twombly. The collection continues to support up-and-coming local artists in its Antechamber of Summer exhibition. This year’s exhibition is by Melika Sadeghzadeh, an Iranian artist living and working in Montpellier.

Just south of Avignon, Arles has at its centre a nearly 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre, which hosts plays and concerts. The Vincent van Gogh Foundation and Luma host several exhibitions throughout the year, but the real treat comes in July during the Rencontres d’Arles. For 50 years, venues across town, from galleries to grocery stores, have showcased a wide range of contemporary and historical photography.

Recently, we went to Arles for its Festival of Drawing. After a wander through the picturesque medieval streets of the Roquette district on the east side of town, popping into venues as we went, we discovered the tiny restaurant Páou in the quaint Place Paul Doumer. The menu promised sharing plates starring local produce and wines. So we sat down for another meal at another terrace table, under another clear blue sky.