2017
RIBERA #2
THE MEMORY OF THE BIDASOA THROUGH ART
The second edition of the Ribera project was held on Saturday 23 September 2017 on the banks of the Bidasoa River. This initiative highlights the cultural and historical legacy of the river and the water as the revitalizing force behind our lives. Throughout the day, various artists and groups intervened in this space with installations, projections, dance, and music.
The program included various installations and actions by Bitamine Faktoria as well; the mobile gallery Kubo Beltza Project by Pau Figueres with "Echoes of Bidasoa"; "Walls of Memory" by GKo Gallery; the contemporary dance piece by Myriam Pérez Cazabon "Nere azalean arrotz"; a forum theatre, the result of the Ribera Grant directed by Alazne Corral and Gorka Álvarez; the performance of the duo LUMI; and the "Expanded Landscape Bidasoa" projections by Jaime de los Ríos.
In addition, Ribera proposed a presentation on October 5 2017, at the CBA cultural center, with the aim to distribute and publicize the artistic process in which the artists were involved, to show how the work processes have been, inviting the public to a collective reflection.
The Ribera project is an initiative promoted by the Irun City Council within the framework of the Irun Factory, a program for the promotion of creative industries and artistic creation which focus on the decentralization and visibility of art in public spaces.
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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.