2023
Research project
Artistic residencies / New approaches
The initiative to review the programmes of aid for creation organised by Bitamine Faktoria over the last 10 years arose shortly after the period of pandemics, confinements and limitations on many of the freedoms we had enjoyed until then.
It is true that the new present had changed as a consequence of the events. The economy had been affected, many families had lost loved ones, the routine and changing restrictions we faced on a daily basis made us feel lost and hopeless. But also, people had changed. Many of us have taken advantage of this hiatus to slow down, reflect, analyse, blame ourselves, accept that sometimes we lose and even take away burdensome duties. To question our objectives and look for answers.
Continuing with the model we had proposed until then in our structure was irresponsible. And the answers would not appear on their own, they had to be sought.
Within this framework, a long task was planned, with concrete phases, articulated with each other and consecutive in time.
A research project was launched in November 2021 to find out the state of the artistic and cultural sector in the Basque Country, and it was carried out throughout 2022.
Many people have been involved in the work process, which has been an invaluable source of knowledge, and it is thanks to all of them that we can now share these results, which I sincerely hope will be useful and fruitful for the sector.
Design: Estudio Moriskette
PARTICIPANTS OF THE COMMUNITY
MORE PROJECTS
Intx'Apain
Intx’Apain is an urban art festival that, over three days, transforms around ten walls across the neighbourhood into spaces for creation and connection, bringing together local and international artists and the neighbourhood community. The Basque language will be at the heart of the murals, guided by the central theme Zein da zure hitza? (“What’s your word?”), an invitation to artists and residents to take words as a starting point for creating, sharing and coming together.
Music, rap, bertsolaritza (Basque improvised sung poetry), breakdance, workshops and participatory activities developed in collaboration with ikastolas (Basque-language schools), local associations and community organisations will accompany the artistic interventions, turning the festival into a collective experience.
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Urumeako Atlas Emozionala - Erakusketa
Body, Memory and Riverbed
This Atlas does not follow a river: it immerses itself in it.
The exhibition invites us to read the Urumea through those who have inhabited it and the gestures that remain embedded in its memory. Bodies bent over the water to wash clothes. Bodies pulling oars in rhythm. Bodies carrying sand, bottling oil or rolling tobacco. Bodies dancing at local festivities, holding flags, crossing bridges time and again until these crossings became part of everyday life.
The river thus emerges as an organism in constant transformation, but also as a place marked by the traces others have left behind. Some remain, while others have disappeared along with the trades, factories, forms of leisure and ways of relating to its waters. Exploring the Urumea through the body also means asking ourselves what remains of all this, and what kind of relationship we wish to build with the river from now on.
This exhibition marks the culmination of a project developed over three years. It began with a research process that gave voice to local residents. Through surveys, group interviews and participatory workshops, we gathered the perceptions of the people of San Sebastián regarding the river that runs through their city: memories, images, sensations, historical information and more.
Drawing on these testimonies, we created a written atlas, a publication comprising ten narratives that explore the history of the river, the city and the ways in which people inhabit these two places. Now, these ten narratives take on a different language as they enter the exhibition space: words give way to images, sound and movement, revisiting the same events through other ways of telling and experiencing them.
Helga Massetani Piemonte
Curator: Helga Massetani Piemonte
Heritage Collections Management: María José Noain Maura
Texts: Helga Massetani Piemonte and María José Noain Maura
Emotional Management in the Art Ecosystem: Towards a Decalogue of Good Cultural Practices
Bitamine is launching a research project on the emotional, professional, and relational conditions that shape the artistic and cultural ecosystem in Gipuzkoa.
The project starts from a simple yet necessary question: how do precarity, uncertainty, open calls, production rhythms, and sector dynamics affect the everyday lives of the people who sustain this ecosystem?
Through this questionnaire, we aim to gather experiences, perceptions, and forms of discomfort, while also identifying practices of care, strategies of resistance, and possible paths for transformation. The ultimate goal is to develop a collective diagnosis and a decalogue of good cultural practices that can contribute to a more sustainable, fair, and caring cultural sector.
The research is coordinated by Helga Massetani Piemonte (Bitamine) and developed in collaboration with:
Mónica Crespo Doval
Degree in Sociology, Academic Secretary and Tutor Lecturer at UNED-Bergara.
Larraitz Nerea Zumeta Sánchez
PhD in Psychology, researcher and tutor at UNED-Bergara.
If you work professionally within the artistic and cultural sector in Gipuzkoa, we invite you to participate.
👉 Access the questionnaire: https://form.typeform.com/to/ijbBLP7I
Estimated completion time: 15-20 minutes.
Your participation is anonymous and will contribute to generating collective knowledge about working and living conditions in the cultural sector.