Circusland, also known as the International Palace of Circus Arts (in Catalan, Palau Internacional de les Arts del Circ), is a museum dedicated to the world of circus, located in Besalú, Catalonia (Spain). It was opened the 18th of December 2020. It is housed within the Cal Coro building (built in 1945), where the abbey house of Besalú's Sant Pere monastery originally was.
It is Europe's only patrimonial institution dedicated to circus history and tradition. Its goal is to gather, preserve, research, showcase and promote the cultural heritage of the circus.
Along with the Golden Elephant International Circus Festival, it is one of the main initiatives promoted by the Circus Art Foundation, a Spanish private cultural foundation directed by GenÃÂs Matabosch, a circus historian and producer. The foundation's goal is to promote, disseminate, protect and give prestige to the circus arts as leisure, a performing art, an integral part of culture and a paradigm of multiculturalism.
The Circus Art Foundation possesses one of the world's biggest collections related to the world of circus, owning several thousand pieces. Of these, 537 are currently exhibited at Circusland.
They are distributed in a space of 1,500 square meters, in three floors and a total of twelve rooms. They are set in the form of a journey through circus history by exploring its different disciplines.
The collection includes:
The first stage of the project was 1.7 million euros, and was funded with the financial support of the Generalitat de Catalunya (which invested 750,000 euros over the course of four years) and Girona's provincial delegation (which invested 500,000 euros between 2020 and 2021).