EspacioOpenCulturalCentre -OldArtiachFactory- 2023
Cultural centre activities
Workshops and projects in the digital fabrication laboratory Fab Lab Bilbao
International Festival Maker Faire Bilbao
Creative technology activities for professionals, students, and families
International Projects
We work with over 50 organisations from all around the world on 3 European projects
espacioopen.com
Welcometothecookiefactory in
Scanning
“One of the first creative initiatives in creative Zorrotzaurre”
Espacio Open is an ecosystem of creative projects with a positive social impact. Since 2009, it has been located in Bilbao’s old cookie factory (Artiach Factory), in the La Ribera de Deusto / Zorrotzaurre quarter. We have over 510,000 annual visitors, 14 employees, and 2,000 m2 facility space. As a cultural centre and not-for-profit association, Espacio Open works on the intersection between contemporary culture, creative technologies, and social impact.
The cultural centre Espacio Open aims to boost innovative initiatives that create a positive social impact on the local environment, promoting the intersection between open technologies, art, creativity, and design. Throughout the year, we organise many different activities intended for very diverse profiles: from artists and professionals in technology to students and the general public.
At Espacio Open, we drive highly diverse projects, focused on encouraging a positive social impact on the local environment. With Fab Lab Bilbao, our digital fabrication laboratory, we promote the creative residency programme for professionals in art, design, and the maker movement. This space is also home to workshops and tours throughout the year that are oriented toward educational and research centres.
On an annual basis, we organise the International Creative Technologies Festival Maker Faire Bilbao. This event seeks to boost the use of technologies between different sectors, fostering creativity, innovation, and social impact. As players linked to social innovation,
we are partners on several European projects, including the project Horizon 2020 T-Factor, Eureka (Erasmus+), and Distributed Design (Creative Europe).
Every weekend, we offer alternative and free cultural activities. Our programme includes weekly events and concerts at our cafeteria Jardín Secreto Bilbao, open from Friday through Sunday, as well as the circular economy initiative Vintage Bilbao, a shop with over 500m2 of second-hand clothing. Through these activities, we want to help to breathe life into the neighbourhood, bringing residents to the former Artiach cookie factory’s emblematic space. www.espacioopen.com
In 1921, the Artiach family inaugurated the new factory located in La Ribera de Deusto, with the most modern fittings available at that time to achieve high production levels. Its 60person staff was mainly women. In the early years, they produced up to 18 tonnes of cookies per day.
The cookie makers mobilise to claim their rights as workers, organising strikes to fight for a dignified salary. At the end of this decade, they succeeded in obtaining more highly-qualified positions.
Artiach reaches 600 employees, most of them women. They are young, in the difficult post- war years, with long workdays and lower wages than men.
The former factory has become an industrial space with many small companies and craftspeople filling the galleries, but the crisis in the 90s gradually empties the space.
The terrible Bilbao flood also affects the factory and Artiach decides to move to Orozco. A new phase begins for the former factory, and it is filled with small industrial workshops.
Espacio Open moves into the former Artiach cookie factory. It begins with several projects, including the Sunday market “Open Your Ganbara.” This creative initiative marks the beginning of a new stage for the factory, drawing in other creative projects to fill the factory’s shops that, until this point, had been empty.
In 2007, the Master Plan for the island was approved, although it will take over a decade to begin. At this same time, the first creative projects move to the neighbourhood.
First Creative Europe European project: Distributed Design
First Open Your Ganbara Event
First FAB LAB Bilbao Creation residences
We open the cultural centre’s cafeteria: Jardín Secreto Bilbao
First Modification of the Urban Plan for Cultural Activity
First Horizon 2020 T-Factor European Project
At Fab Lab Bilbao we manufacture more than 10,000 PPE to combat COVID
First Erasmus Plus Eureka European Project
Esker On award from the Provincial Council of Bizkaia
First EIT European project: Elementary Cooling
Selected as a Sorgune Creation Factory of the Basque Government
2023
Vintage Bilbao is born as a continuation of the Open Your Ganbara market 2020
At Espacio Open, we foster and collaborate on programmes for creation, training, and entrepreneurship that are related to social and cultural innovation. Throughout 2023, we promoted and participated in different cultural initiatives designed to create value in our local area and to forge networks with similar projects through our digital fabrication laboratory, and also through the centre’s different lines of action. The centre’s activities include workshops for professionals and creative projects through Fab Lab Bilbao, collaborations with educational centres, the enormous programme under the annual festival Maker Faire Bilbao, and activities for all kinds of audiences throughout the year. https://espacioopen.com/proyectos/
For over a decade, two advertising billboards 16 metres long have flanked the outside door to the Jardín Secreto Bilbao bar. This structure was left frozen in time, out-of- date and useless today, yet a huge invasion of the urban landscape. In 2023, Espacio Open decided to reconvert this unused structure and making it into a giant canvas for collective creation.
Proyecto Valla (Billboard Project) is an idea that Fab Lab Bilbao drove forward to take back the unused advertising space as an artistic medium. The initiative consisted of turning two advertising billboards 16 metres long and 3 metres high into an infrastructure available to artist and creator collectives. The project also sought to make one reflect on how advertising structures privatise public space, many of them out-of-date, when these spaces could serve a multitude of citizen uses. Proyecto Valla was first activated under the Maker Faire Bilbao festival. The architecture collective Fiasco conducted the “Inauguración en Blanco (White Inauguration)” event to activate this new open-air space for creation. Architects Ibai Etxezarraga Alvarez, Diego Sologuren, Naiara Otaegi, and Xabier Polledo Arrizabalaga suggested mapping the billboard, focused as an exercise in archaeology to record the different layers of the advertising medium.
After this, the billboard was covered in white, giving new meaning to the medium as a space for citizen use. This action, conducted by the Fiasco collective of architects, was the trigger for a project that will continue to take place throughout 2024. The intent is for the billboard to continue to host different temporary actions.
The first will occur in February 2024, in collaboration with IED Kunsthal, under the European project T-Factor. Students from this centre of higher education located in La Ribera de Deusto will participate in the action, with a proposal inspired by urban transformation and memory of the neighbourhood. After this, calls will be put out for new actions on the billboard over the course of the year.
https://espacioopen.com/proyecto-valla/
Cultural Centre Activities
Culture Testbeds for Performing Arts and New Technology (ACuTe) is a European project focused on driving innovation in stage arts by exploring up-and-coming technologies and implementing new ways to culturally collaborate.
Espacio Open participated in one of the residences of this European project with an event designed for theatre and stage art professionals. During the event, we explored digital fabrication technologies and how to possibly apply them for innovation in these fields. Organised by Azkuna Zentroa, the workshop included the participation of theatres and artistic producers like Landestheater Linz, Det Norske Teatret Oslo, and De Toneelmakerij Amsterdam. Participants learned about inspiring projects developed at Fab Lab Bilbao in the field of stage arts.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-acute-azkuna-zentroa/
Espacio Open participated in a training day on cultural and creative projects for students at ADE Mondragon Unibertsitatea.
A hundred new Business Administration students who begin their university degree this year at the university based on the island took an educational tour of Espacio Open. This event was part of an activity designed for new students to discover the diversity of cultural and creative projects currently housed in La Ribera de Deusto - Zorrotzaurre. https://espacioopen.com/jornada-formativanuevos-estudiantes-mu/
Cultural Centre Activities
Zombie spaces are areas in cities that have been forgotten by urban planning, frozen in time by renewal plans, or burdened by outside interests.
Espacio Open participated in the urban research laboratory Behatokia from Azkuna Zentroa with a meeting organised by Urbanbat, devoted to analysing these urban environments. During the process, we analysed how cultural, artistic, and citizen practises can play an important role in breathing life into these zombie spaces, burdened by private interests or gentrification strategies. In June 2023, we held a debate open to the public, with the participation of Gaspar Maza, doctor in anthropology and member of Idensitat, and Nerea Díaz, expert in innovation and knowledge and director of the cultural centre Espacio Open. https://espacioopen.com/behatokia-espacios-zombi/
ISLA ZOMBI
La revitalización de espacios zombis: integrando procesos urbanísticos e industrias creativas y culturales
Nerea Díaz
El panorama urbano contemporáneo enfrenta diversos retos, entre los que destacan los espacios zombis, la planificación urbana y la promoción de las industrias creativas y culturales Estos tres elementos están intrínsecamente interconectados y su abordaje conjunto se vuelve fundamental para el desarrollo sostenible de nuestras ciudades.
As a part of the Behatokia programme, Espacio Open participated in the project’s series of publications with the article La Isla Zombi (Zombie Island), where we reflect on the challenges posed by forgotten spaces in cities’ town planning processes.
In this text on the situation in Zorrotzaurre, the director of Espacio Open, Nerea Díaz, analyses the opportunities provided in these urban zones by driving blended development projects that include cultural activities and creative players in their foundation.
As set forth in the article, creative and cultural industries “play a fundamental role in the process of transforming underused and deteriorated spaces, or spaces forgotten by town planning, providing opportunities to reuse them and not under the exclusive framework of temporary use or in the meantime.” As a case study, the publication also explores the European project T-Factor, in which Espacio Open participates as a partner.
Available online, the article is part of Espacio Open’s collaboration with Azkuna Zentroa and the research and mediation office Urbanbat. https://espacioopen.com/la-isla-zombibehatokia/
Figure 4. Former Mefesa factory, catalogued as industrial heritage, today in ruins. Zorrotzaurre island, 2017 Photograph: own archive
Figure 6. Former cookie factory in Bilbao, Artiach Factory, catalogued as industrial heritage, on Ribera de Deusto 70, Zorrotzaurre Island, Bilbao Today, this is a fertile ecosystem where traditional industries and creative and cultural industries co-exist.
2021 Photograph: own archive https://espacioopen.com/nosotras/
5. “Zona de Aislamiento (Isolation Zone)” mural on the façade of Marmolería Ercor Stone, on
de Deusto 73, Bilbao 2019 Photograph: own archive
Figure 7. Urban walks through industrial ruins. Open Aroma Lab Workshop with Frank Bloem at the international creative technology festival Maker Faire Bilbao, held at the former Artiach factory, in Espacio Open’s facilities. Zorrotzaurre Island.
2021 Photograph: own archive https://espacioopen.com/workshop-open-aromalab/
8. Public-use space created by residents of
archive.
Figure 9. European tours with cultural players to venues/pavilions with no use/activity inside the former Artiach factory. Photograph: own archive. https://espacioopen.com/visitas/
Jardín Secreto Bilbao is our cultural centre’s cafeteria, a green oasis in the city where you can have a drink and eat lunch or dinner. A meeting place to enjoy the sound of birds in this neighbourhood, which is under full transformation, and to discover alternative and free entertainment.
With events every weekend and unique decoration, the Jardín Secreto creates a very special ambience to enjoy a pizza, dishes to share, or a delicious cocktail with good company. Throughout the year, Jardín Secreto Bilbao has celebrated music, art, and new creative activities, along with alternative entertainment every weekend, like the Vintage Club concerts, the Freedom Jam Sessions, exhibitions, and events. Additionally, in 2023, they began exhibiting sculptures of residents from the La Ribera de Deusto neighbourhood, which will continue to grow throughout 2024. https://espacioopen.com/jardin-secreto/ Cultural Centre Activities
The Freedom Jam Session events have become an event for improv live music and the magical environment that is created when music lovers come together. Under the slogan No pressure, no rules, just fun, Freedom Jam Session’s intent is to create a space to have a good time, without pressure, rule-free.
Freedom Jam Sessions are open to anyone who wishes to participate. They may bring their own instrument or use the ones provided by Espacio Open. These events are intended for all levels and styles, under the premise that everyone can come up on stage and form part of a jam, creating improvised music on the fly.
These Freedom Jam Sessions, entirely free of cost, began to be held in 2023. Such is their success that in 2024, we have decided to hold two events per month, the second and fourth Friday of each month, to continue enjoying live music. Freedom Jam Session events begin at 20h in the Jardín Secreto Bilbao, the cafeteria of the Espacio Open cultural centre.
In 2023, we launched the Vintage Club events, with new creators and live music. Over the past 12 months, 22 artists have performed in this open and free initiative. Most of the participants are local, although we have also hosted creations and live performances by artists from other parts of the country or from abroad.
The idea behind the Vintage Club initiative is to provide a space for up-and-coming local artists, all while showcasing the latest trends in music and creation with events that are always free and open. They are held in Jardín Secreto Bilbao, the cultural centre’s cafeteria.
Through these monthly events, Espacio Open intends to create a network and a community to participate in the current ecosystem of the Artiach factory and the island we call home, to create synergies, and to keep connecting dots across the city, offering a free alternative for entertainment and leisure in Bilbao. Here are some of the artists who participated in 2023. https://espacioopen.com/nace-vintage-club/
Paco Merluzo & VJ Anisakis
Igor Arias and Juan Dopico brought us their sound and visual mutations.
Her painting mixes an abstract style and portraits with acrylic paint, experimenting with textures.
The French artist introduced the experimental photography project Spiritus Mundi
Guille and Rober introduced their launch “A punta de pistola,” an album leaning into electropunk
The Italian artist located in Bilbao introduced his latest project, “Sudadera de rayas. ”
A group of rock lovers bringing the biggest hits of the 60s, 70s, and 80s
Part of the Reykjavik606 duo, Álvaro Granda creates a rich network of broken and syncopated beats
Ana Herce Vives, architect and artist exploring the perception of space.
A pop rock band from Biscay that mixes electronica, creating a unique sound
LEA
Estrella Electrónica
A DJ who spins vinyl with beats like Salsa, Cumbia, Funk, Disco, and electronica.
Arketypo
Bilbao musician Gonzalo Atela introduced his original blend of electronica, pop, and funk.
DJ Lea made us dance with a sessions that blended bumping music with urban genres.
With influences from African music, jazz, funk, and soul, Tarisko, the band from Bilbao, creates its sound universe. This Ukrainian artist converts an object for everyday use like a lamp into a sculpture.
A folk rock group from Biscay born in 2020. They brought the songs from their latest EP to Vintage Club.
The illustrator seeks to raise visibility for the social inequality suffered by women around the world.
Illustrator Carlota Barrenetxea bases her work on the female portrait in different mediums
A project created by Pilar Parra, an artist who creates ceramic pieces on falling in and out of love.
Within the circular economy and social entrepreneurship line, Espacio Open has started up the Vintage Bilbao project, a second-hand clothing shop that we open every weekend.
As opposed to fast fashion, we lean into sustainable consumption, with over 500m2 of vintage clothing and accessories. During its short two-year history, Vintage Bilbao has received acknowledgement from the Basque Government through Ihobe, selecting it as an example of sustainability. It has also participated in activities to foster the circular economy, like Fast Revolution Spain.
Every weekend, people of all ages come to the Vintage Bilbao shop. This proves the trend toward sustainable fashion and that conscious shopping is increasingly widespread. From young people looking for special garments at a low price to fashion lovers who value unique pieces, families and tourists who wish to discover another part of Bilbao come from Friday through Sunday to Vintage Bilbao. It also has the online shop www.vintagebilbao.com with a selection of the brand’s garments.
Vintage Bilbao has become a weekly event for many people who wish to support sustainable clothing consumption and experience a different kind of weekend, discovering the emblematic former Artiach cookie factory. Proof of this is that more than 3,500 kg of vintage garments were recycled and sold over the course of 2023. This saved 80 tonnes of CO2, or what one person would expend on food, heating, and transport during more than 6 years.
Fab Lab Bilbao is Espacio Open’s creation and digital culture centre for digital fabrication and creation and critical use of technology. Fab Lab Bilbao is a laboratory open to communities and professionals to develop projects related to digital culture.
The Fab Lab Bilbao space is home to different creation programmes intended for artistic, technological, entrepreneurial, and maker community profiles through open calls.
It also provides consulting for cultural entities that wish to incorporate digital fabrication technological tools into other contexts, such as art, education, and social innovation. Fab Lab Bilbao has a tour programme for educational entities and creation spaces, designed to raise awareness
of the possibilities provided by these technologies in multiple different fields.
Moreover, this creation laboratory is open to like-minded communities and local professionals. Over the course of the year, they come to use Fab Lab Bilbao’s facilities in a more informal fashion, to utilise the digital fabrication tools for their projects. https://espacioopen.com/fab-lab-bilbao/
Espacio Open leads the project Elementary Cooling, an innovative cooling system based on ancestral techniques and digital fabrication technologies. This device, which cools the environment without using energy, was selected by the European Union through the EIT programme for development. It will be made in 2024.
Regular air conditioning systems consume a great deal of power and have a high environmental impact. They are also part of a vicious cycle, since while they cool our space, they also contribute to global warming. As opposed to these systems, Elementary Cooling proposes an alternative based on ancestral techniques using ingenuity and basic elements like clay, water, and air current to cool spaces down.
Espacio Open is leading the Elementary Cooling project, bringing together expert teams on sustainability and cooling, 3D ceramic printing, product design, and fabrication. The Elementary Cooling team also includes Jetclay, an international platform that works with open-code 3D ceramic printing. Jetclay is specialised in developing machinery, product design, and training on opensource 3D printing technologies, joining the latest technologies in digital fabrication with artisanal ceramic fabrication techniques.
Elementary Cooling’s idea is based on R+D developed by the product designer and researcher Lucas Muñoz, who created a system of large clay jars to cool spaces. They can be viewed in the restaurant Mo de Movimiento, in Madrid. With these designs, the multidisciplinary team is working on cooling and air purification systems that are based on plants and ceramic structures to filter and channel air.
The Elementary Cooling project focuses on providing an environmentally sustainable and affordable alternative to traditional air conditioning systems, which require huge amounts of energy. What is more, the fabrication model is also sustainable. The project’s essence is digital, since the main value is the design of the systems, which were developed to be fabricated with ceramic 3D printers. This means that the product can be globally distributed in digital format and produced locally with digital fabrication tools, thus following the principles of distributed design.
The Elementary Cooling project has already sparked international interest and was selected by the European Union Institute of Innovation & Technology’s programme to obtain European financial funds. The new cooling system will be developed throughout 2024 and the intent is for it to be ready for sale by the end of the year.
https://espacioopen.com/elementary-cooling-sistemaclimatizar-consciente/
The Muro de la Memoria (Memory Wall) initiative seeks to highlight the recent history of the La Ribera de Deusto post-industrial neighbourhood through the faces of the people who gave it life.
One of the most representative projects of Espacio Open’s essence is the Muro de la Memoria, an initiative that uses digital fabrication technologies to highlight the local identity. The project consists of scanning and ceramic printing the busts of the people related to the La Ribera de Deusto neighbourhood to create an exhibition open to the public.
The people who are a part of this collection are residents who experienced the transformation of this post-industrial neighbourhood, workers from the emblematic Artiach cookie factory, entrepreneurs who carried out their project on the island, workers who spent half their lives in these industrial warehouses... and many others who are part of the neighbourhood’s living history.
The Muro de la Memoria project kicked off in late 2022 as an activity under the Maker Faire Bilbao festival. It continued in 2023 and will continue in 2024 with events to scan and print more participants. The result will be shown in an exhibition outside the Jardín Secreto bar, to make it entirely open to the public.
The Muro de la Memoria initiative will also take on new shapes through collaboration with other projects and collectives. In 2024, it will be introduced as a prototype under the European project Horizon 2020 T-Factor, of which Espacio Open is a partner.
The intent is for the initiative to act as a starting point to highlight local identities and promote bonds between communities through the use of technologies. The project will move to other digital fabrication centres around Europe, the intent being to create new collaborative relationships.
In 2023, Espacio Open collaborated on the report Transición Digital in Euskadi (Digital Transition in the Basque Country), a work of research that aims to assess the levels of participation in the Digital Transition in the Basque Country.
It analyses 12 initiatives and players who have a role in the digital transition for citizens and companies. The purpose is to assess to which extent this transition is occurring in a democratic and plural fashion, putting people at the heart of things. The report was developed by Jaseff Raziel Yauri Miranda, researcher at the University of Deusto, in collaboration with Wikitoki.
The digital fabrication laboratory Fab Lab Bilbao is one of the players who participated in this research, along with other players associated with integrating digital technologies into society like Basque Cyber Security Centre, Irekia, Open Data Euskadi, Lantik, and OGP Euskadi (the Alliance for Open Government). As a centre for creation and digital culture, Fab Lab Bilbao is included in the research as a player from civil society whose objective is to bring the use of digital technologies to citizens.
The research includes a series of improvements for citizen participation practises in the digital transition process. The report and its conclusions are available on the project’s website.
https://espacioopen.com/transicion-digital-euskadifablabbilbao/
Since 2013, Espacio Open has organised Maker Faire Bilbao, the International Creative Technologies Festival, on a yearly basis. In 2023, the event was focused on using digital technologies to highlight the memory of the La Ribera de Deusto neighbourhood with projects that will continue throughout 2024.
During the festival, there were also workshops on artisan techniques, rescuing old knowledge and blending it with innovations like the fabrication of biomaterials and wearables. To do this, they used old sewing machines, 3D printers, and creative electronics. In the 2023 event, they inaugurated a new space outside the factory for large-sized artistic actions.
In total, over 290 people participated in the activities, professional workshops, family workshops, and project presentations. Under the Semana del Diseño - Bilbao Bizkaia Design Week 2023, the festival was part of the activities programme for the European project Horizon 2020 T-Factor, the European platform Distributed Design, and the Basque Government’s network of creation factories. https://bilbao.makerfaire.com/
La Ribera de Deusto is a neighbourhood with its own identity and a very important industrial past in the history of Bilbao. However, this part of our collective memory is quickly disappearing as the neighbourhood’s landscape changes.
Under Maker Faire Bilbao, we put out a call to invite residents from the neighbourhood’s present and past to join a project to preserve its memory through their personal stories. The initiative uses open-code digital fabrication technologies to create ceramic sculptures of people who have lived or worked in the neighbourhood for decades.
By using the fabrication laboratory Fab Lab Bilbao’s digital fabrication tools, under the Muro de la Memoria (Memory Wall) project, we scanned busts of residents from the La Ribera neighbourhood who have spent a good part of their lives in the quarter, living or working at one of the factories or in the industrial pavilions. Everyone from Artiach’s seamstresses to cookie makers at the old factory or people involved with the neighbourhood’s association life. These scans were used to print their sculptures in ceramic, using the large-format 3D printer Jetclay. Designed with open code, this tool was built during Maker Faire Bilbao 2021, created by the international platform Jetclay. Today, it is part of the Fab Lab Bilbao laboratory.
The people who participated in the different sessions were closely linked to the factory and the neighbourhood, like Chamorro, head of maintenance at the cookie factory for over three decades, the seamstresses Begoña, Azucena, Mari Jose, Txaro, and Mari Luz, who created a cooperative in one of the galleries, and residents Libe, Miguel, Iñaki, Umarán, Rosa, and many more.
These pieces will form part of an exhibition held in Espacio Open’s facilities throughout 2024. The initiative aims to pay homage to the history of La Ribera de Deusto through its inhabitants.
https://espacioopen.com/construyendo-muromemoria/
When he was young, he worked with his father and his brother on the boat that crossed the river to bring the cookie makers from Olabeaga to La Ribera. “We started at 5 in the morning. By 7, we already had two boats ready to take everyone to work,” he remembers. Years later, he began working at Euskalduna and remained there until his early retirement Juan Ángel spent many years as chair of the residents’ association of La Ribera, working to improve the neighbourhood.
Her grandmother was born at number 55 of La Ribera de Deusto, so she is a lifelong resident of the quarter. “I’m in love with black-and-white La Ribera,” she explains. Libe remembers the smell of cookies, which permeated the neighbourhood, and especially the cookie makers “They brought life,” she reminisces. “These were the first women I saw having a drink, because until then only men went to bars, so they were very special for us girls.”
“For me, there’s nowhere as wonderful as La Ribera,” explains Anabel. “I still love it, despite everything.” When she was young, she remembers a neighbourhood full of children who went to play in the square. She also remembers the cookie makers there, jumping rope, eating sandwiches, and singing. “These are the people that give a space its identity,” she says, “which is why, when the factory restarted activities, life was breathed back into it.”
Miguel moved to La Ribera 20 years ago, so he knew it when the factories were already gone, and the quarter had fallen into a period of decadence. “When I arrived, it had been abandoned,” he explains. Even so, he fell in love with the neighbourhood’s peacefulness and personality. “A few years ago, the bulldozers came, and now we are all waiting to see how this fits in with those of us who live here.”
Rosa was born at number 24 De la Ribera. She lived there until she was 8, when her parents went to Deusto. “When I was young, people from Deusto came here to go out because there were bars here, shops, a bank I remember walking around the street and always seeing life.” After living in London for a few years, Rosa returned to the neighbourhood. Today, she actively participates in the residents’ association.
Maker Faire Bilbao - Scanning and 3D Printing the Cookie Factory’s Neighbours
35 years ago, she and her workmates opened a shop in one of the galleries in the old Artiach factory, Confecciones Bilsey. They worked their entire lives there until they retired in 2023. “We were at a shop in Bilbao before, but they fired us, so we took the leap and set up our own shop,” she explains. During this period, they had ups and downs, but they always stuck together: “We worked a lot, but we also had a very good ” she states.
“They’re almost like my family because we spent so many years working together, a whole lifetime!” explains Azucena. They worked for three decades as seamstresses, first with ready-to-wear garments, and then when work was offshored to other countries, mending for large department stores. “Just like so many other trades, it’s being lost, and there aren’t many professionals left.”
As María explains, when they came to Artiach, the factory was brimming with activity and only a few galleries were available. “On our floor, there was a printing press, a varnisher, carpenters... Then it started to decline, and we were left almost alone.” From those decades, she still especially remembers the good times she spent with her workmates, “although we worked a lot!”
“When we arrived, the galleries were full,” explains María José. “There was a lot of life, we got together at Christmas and made a meal...we had a wonderful time.” She also remembers Chamorro, head of maintenance, “the entire pavilion was well-organised, not like now. ” María José also retired last year. Although they do not see each other every day, they still meet every so often to keep the friendship alive.
“We held on like fighters through all the hard times, until we couldn’t anymore, ” explains Mariluz. They closed the shop in 2023, but she is the only one who has not retired and still works at another company. “I miss them a great deal, because it was like working with your family,” she states. “At the factory, we all pitched in when there was a lot of work, and we suffered when there wasn’t.”
Under Maker Faire Bilbao, there was a programme with workshops and project presentations to share knowledge related to craftsmanship and maker culture.
Through this initiative, we connected traditional wisdom with experimentation in biomaterials and the creation of wearables, made with digital fabrication tools.
What all these activities share are maker women as creators, artists, artisans, and researchers, highlighting fields of creation that traditionally did not hold a prominent role in technological experimentation and maker movements.
Artist Enara Lariz, from the project Enara Arte Textil, con-ducted a workshop on exploring weaving technique, reinventing it with different textures and shapes. The second workshop was taught by artist and researcher Cristina Dezi from the project Bruixes
Lab. This activity was focused on Do-It-Yourself biomaterial fabrication with algae, cellulose, and body fluids, and using these materials to create wearable devices.
During these events, they also paid homage to legendary women residents from the island, the cooperative of Artiach’s seamstresses, who retired in 2023 after over three decades spent working in the factory’s facilities.
To preserve the industrial memory, part of their machines and materials are now part of Fab Lab Bilbao digital laboratory, and they were used in these workshops. https://espacioopen.com/e cosistema-mujeres-maker/
Maker Faire Bilbao - Maker Women Ecosystem
Enara Lariz is a creator and artisan from Biscay, the driver behind the project Enara Arte Textil (Enara Textile Art). She blends traditional knowledge with creative techniques in her tapestries and teaches workshops for female empowerment through macrame techniques blended with other artisan methods.
The Artiach seamstresses Begoña, Azucena, Mari Jose, Txaro, and Mari Luz participated in the Maker Women Ecosystem workshops. They showed us how to operate one of their professional machines, which was used for the Enara Textil and Bruixes Lab workshops.
Bruixes Lab, formed by Giulia Tomasello and Cristina Dezi, is a nomad and collective laboratory for exploring biohacking from a trans-feminist and DIY perspective. The intention is to experiment with biomaterials and wearables by crossing new media art, design, technologies, and textile research.
The seamstresses shared over three decades of knowledge of their craft with the workshop’s participants, a high-value profession that is about to disappear.
Projects
In the Jetclay Academy workshop, creative profiles learned the basics to build and use open-code ceramic printers. Taught by the international platform Jetclay, the purpose of the workshop was to open up the possibilities of these technologies so that participants could include them in their creation processes. To this end, they used the new desktop printer prototype.
Ten professional profiles from the world of art, architecture, and digital technologies participated in the Jetclay Academy workshop. This was an intensive programme intended to bring 3D printing with ceramic materials to creative and craftsman sectors.
Promoted through the European project Distributed Design, the workshop was taught by Japi Contonente, architect and co-founder of the international platform Jetclay, with the support of Julián Trotman, co-founder of Godot Studio.
Participants received personalised accompaniment to begin using ceramic 3D printing in their creative field.
The workshop focused on how to build and use a low-cost ceramic 3D printer, using the new Jetclay mini model. This desktop printer was introduced for the first time at the workshop.
Initially, attendees explored the open-code documentation to build the machine, from its creators. After this, they delved into how to use the tool and the specific characteristics of printing with clay.
Finally, participants had the opportunity to create their own piece, related to the creative projects they were working on.
The workshop also explored business strategies adapted to new product and service manufacturing and distribution contexts in cultural and creative industry sectors.
Jetclay is an international platform that explores 3D ceramic printing, developing open-code tools in industrial design, architecture, interior design, and visual arts. During Maker Faire Bilbao, Jetclay also conducted a workshop at the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao, where they made a ceramic reproduction of artist Pablo Picasso’s hand.
Javier Contonente is one of the founders of the Jetclay collective. With a degree in architecture from ETSAM (Higher Technical School of Architecture of Madrid), he works in architecture, interior design and stage spaces, digital craftsmanship, and education. A member of MakeSpace Madrid since it began in 2013, he sees the use of technology as a craftsman and experimental action, developing and manufacturing his own work tools.
https://espacioopen.com/jetclay-academyworkshop-2023/
An artist focused on drawing and painting, her project explores the close bonds between intense emotional states, the organic, and memory. The project attempts to express the irrational and confused nature of human perception, seeking a sense of balance despite asymmetric shapes. https://www.instagram.com/rileycookart/
The project “El desierto que somos (The Desert We Are)” is made of Murano glass, 3D ceramic printing, and interactive technologies to address the desertification of the European rural landscape. Focused on the scientific field, local communities, and contemporary art lovers, she uses collaborative processes and traditional materials to question our perception of the land.
https://paisajesinvisibles.org/
From her studio in Avilés, she works on creating dishes and special pieces for chefs, culinary professionals, and individuals. Her intent is to include 3D ceramic printing in her creations and to use augmented reality to create unique and different experiences. www.nuriapozas.com
Professor at the School of Arts of Cantabria, he teaches jewellery projects. Three- dimensional design, digital fabrication, and experimentation with new materials are the themes of the classes he teaches. He sees teaching design as a value for people and the environment.
https://esac.es/
Her project is focused on ceramic made by hand and with traditional materials. She works with a B2B model for sectors like interior design, architecture, and culture, and B2C for art and design lovers. The objective is to establish a new production model that makes designs available to people and businesses. www.impotsibleceramics.com
A workshop teacher at the IED Madrid Fab Lab for the past 10 years, he has vast experience in FDM and SLA 3D printing. His project, still under construction, consists of ceramic printing development of a modular system to create vertical gardens and fields. The design is 100x100 open source and can be adapted to different scenarios and regions.
https://www.ied.es/madrid
An architect with a studio in Oviedo, her professional career has been focused on architecture and digital fabrication, set design, and interactive interventions. She is currently developing an artistic project in the field of generative art, researching the limits of error and imprecision.
https://cioestudio.com/
An entrepreneur who works with plants, she has an online and a physical shop in the Historic City Centre of Bilbao. Her project works with sustainable brands like Elho and Branca de Navaes, with a powerful design and ecological awareness. Her intent is to explore 3D ceramic printing to create a new brand of KM0 ceramic pieces for “ mass ”consumption.
https://www.elclubdelasplantas.com
“Reduir la materia (Reducing Matter)” is a research project that sets out to recycle black ceramic as a strategy for environmental repair. This is long-term research posed as a proposal for a doctoral thesis which includes exploration of 3D ceramic printing as a method of fabrication. https://carla-alcala.com
Her project focuses on fabrication of an Udu (musical instrument) with 3D ceramic printing. Udus are made manually of ceramic. Her intention is to fabricate a 3D model to make it openly available to creative centres with equipment to fabricate them.
https://piapinedo.com
Under Maker Faire Bilbao, the Fiasco architect collective, consisting of Ibai Etxezarraga Alvarez, Diego Sologuren, Naiara Otaegi, Xabier Polledo Arrizabalaga, conducted the first action on the new large-format exhibition space, which was inaugurated at the Maker Faire Bilbao festival. The collective introduced their action “Inauguración en blanco (Blank Inauguration),” which recycles a private and invasive space to turn it into a canvas for collective creation.
An ad billboard, a medium for a corporate image, an entity implanted in an invasive manner, a device for commercial language, an element at the service of marketing, a violent intrusion in the city, a disruption, a deconfiguration of scale, granting of urban space, a private institution shaping the public landscape, a message, many meanings. Cause of conflict, abandoned to its fate, it appears destined to be dismantled. However, now that the administration has stripped it of its status for publicity, why not imagine a reactivation of the element, leaving behind its initial (and until now, only) reason for existence?
While architecture and constructs base the reason for their primary nature on their activity and use, even before taking on a closed, specific form, the fact that it is in ruins, whether (legally) constituted or imagined, sparks speculation that straddles timelessness and the intra-temporal.
A way to renegotiate the tacit agreement between substance and form, based on that magical instant when architecture can take
its independence from one of the contracting parties
From this liberated state, free from the core burden of meaning, stem the memory and the dream that shape this proposal. Memory as a final cartographic action and the dream as an inaugural transmutative tactic.
There is no change if no memory exists previously. Thus, all memory leads to one first step toward subversive action. This means that all subversive action is indeed due to memory and does indeed attempt to remember.
Based on an attentive and thorough gaze, we sought a dialogue with the billboard through a photographic camera. With the visual limitation offered by 50 mm focal length lens, from a bit more than 1 metre away, we divide the entire surface occupied by the billboard into quadrants.
This way of looking forces the photographer to omit the whole and pay attention to the parts. What lies behind the narrative of the imposed meanings, some of which are listed in the first paragraph? What are the materials, the textures, and accumulation of strata concealing? Can we perhaps appreciate the memories of the billboard itself, or the delights of time’s craftsmanship? This way of looking determines
the thought with which we approach, paving the way to address questions, which, from a distance (also subjective) are difficult to observe.
This images can be revisited time and time again, just as they serve as a cartography of an instant.
A minimum action as a response to everything, saying no more. Rebirth through the ritual of baptism. Giving oneself meaning, immersed in white paint. Now spotless, the billboard changes from a passive subject to an active agent, under the metaphorical dialogue it sparks through this action. “Discover me, paint me, use me, manifest yourself.” Now that it has abandoned its other owner, the architecture calls directly on citizens to act as a medium for those who wish to dialogue with it. Colectivo Fiasco https://espacioopen.com/inauguracion-enblanco/
Just like every other year, during the Maker Faire Bilbao festival, we set aside a part of our programming for children and family activities. We organise workshops to bring the world of creative technologies to people of all ages in a fun and entertaining way.
This year, we conducted beginner workshops on electronics with different levels of difficulty, from activities that children as young as 5 can do, to workshops for young people and adults interested in exploring the potential of creative technologies. Most of the time, these were their first technological projects, and many of them repeat each year, doing other workshops to complete their maker passports.
Maker Faire Bilbao’s family workshops aim to spark interest in creative technologies and bring the festival’s projects to the general public. All workshops were taught by the technologist Leonor Rodríguez, a graduate in Industrial Engineering specialised in Data Science.
In 2023, 12 workshops for children and families were carried out, with a total of 120 spots. Registration for the workshops was entirely free of cost, like all the other activities at Maker Faire Bilbao. They drew huge interest, given that the spots were filled just a few days after launching.
In 2023, the different activities were related to creative electronics and soldering for beginners: the Glow-Worm Lamp workshop, where little ones could build their own lamp that turns on and off with movement, the little robot Blinky, with light-up eyes, and DrawDIO, a system that makes any object make sound. After all of the workshops, participants brought the result home as a memento of the activity.
Espacio Open is a part of different European projects related to cultural, social, and urban innovation, with initiatives that seek to create a positive impact and create new solutions to social challenges. We currently work on European projects alongside over 50 partners all throughout Europe, including universities, technological centres, associations, innovation agencies, and public bodies.
Throughout 2023, we participated as partners in three European projects: the Distributed Design platform, co-funded by Creative Europe and devoted to boosting more sustainable production practises and models in the design world, the Horizon 2020 T-Factor project, focused on exploring the potential of temporary town planning, and the Erasmus+ Eureka programme, which aims to train new urban innovators.
The European project T-Factor focuses on exploring the transformative power of temporary uses of space to move toward more sustainable and integrative cities. Through a large coalition of 25 partners consisting of universities, social entities, companies, and municipalities, the consortium’s goal is to integrate temporary town planning into urban regeneration processes.
To reach this goal, six pilots were developed in different European cities: Amsterdam, Bilbao, Kaunas, Lisbon, London, and Milan. Experiences with the temporary use of space were created in all of them to boost citizen participation, test new solutions to social challenges, and highlight the local identity.
Funded by the Horizon 2020 programme, TFactor is a 3-year project that began in 2021. In 2023, we were able to share many results from this process, especially focused on entities and players interested in driving initiatives related to the temporary use of space. All the knowledge generated throughout the almost 3 years of this project can be viewed in the TFactor space, a collection of tools and resources to co-design temporary town planning proposals. The Temporary Futures guide is also available, which includes a
complete collection of the methodologies used for the six T-Factor pilots.
The T-Factor multi-disciplinary team is also working on creating a White Paper focused on promoting the inclusion of temporary uses in institutional and European research agendas as tools within the European Union’s decarbonisation strategies. https://espacioopen.com/t-factor/
The T-Factor Bilbao pilot, coordinated by Bilbao Ekintza, Tecnalia, and Espacio Open, is being carried out in Zorrotzaurre - La Ribera de Deusto, a neighbourhood that is undergoing a re-urbanisation process, where foundational cultural and creative initiatives have emerged during the long meanwhile. The objective of the Bilbao Pilot is to achieve some of the objectives the quarter needs and to promote collaboration between local players through temporary town planning experiences.
One of the pilot’s main initiatives is developing three learning modules in collaboration with three local educational institutions: Mondragon Unibertsitatea, IED Kunsthal, and the University of Deusto. Throughout the 2022-2023 school years, students from the three higherlearning centres conducted these training modules, each intended for a challenge identified in the neighbourhood: Climate adaptation and resilience in the neighbourhood;Circular economy and resilience in the neighbourhood; and Urban Design for Socialisation and Well-Being.
Throughout the year, students designed prototypes of temporary town planning with the assessment of experts from the T-Factor team and creative professionals who work on the island, like Studio Petit Muller and Godot Studio. The prototypes were introduced at the T- Factor Roadshow event in November 2023. https://espacioopen.com/piloto-bilbao-proyecto-tfactor/
T-Factor consists of 25 European partners:
Camden Town, London
Dortmund Town Hall
ANCI Tuscany
Lodz Town Hall
University of the Arts
London
Tongji University Hong Kong
Aalborg University
Politecnico di Milano
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Universitá Statale di Milano
Kaunas Technology
University
TU Dortmund University
NOVA University Lisbon
Lodz University
Bilbao Ekintza
Tecnalia
LAMA
LAND Italy
Plusvalue
LAND Italy
Friche la Belle de Mai
Waag
Futuribile
Kaunas Fortess Park
I-Propeller
Espacio Open is one of the partners within the local Bilbao consortium, which also includes Bilbao Ekintza and Tecnalia and is one of the coordinators of the T-Factor Bilbao pilot.
European Projects - T-Factor
One of T-Factor’s main goals with the Bilbao pilot is to drive new models for collaborative governance in the Zorrotzaurre - La Ribera de Deusto quarter. To this end, over these past three years, we researched and connected with different players on the island in order to test new ways of participation and mutual collaboration.
Firstly, an analysis of cases that already existed in different European cities was conducted, carried out by the Technical University of Dortmund and available online. As of this point, they mapped the players living in the La Ribera quarter and their d Th lt th ti f th remodelling Zorrotzaurre in Bilbao. By involving representatives from local authorities, parties interested in regeneration, base communities, and universities, the CDC seeks to demonstrate ways we can make urban regeneration more participatory and inclusive, shaping “soft” methods for collaboration and co-creation between players.
The process is open to different degrees of participation and includes members from TFactor Espacio Open, Tecnalia, and Bilbao Ekintza, representatives from Institutions of Higher Education Mondragon Unibertsitatea, University of Deusto, and IED Kuntshall, students, design students like Godot Studio, Studio Petit Muller, Abad Design, and Pez Estudio, and residents from the neighbourhood. The intent is for the CDC to keep growing with more players interested in participating, so it can become an entity capable of channelling the different needs and desires of the island’s residents.
In November 2023, under Bilbao Bizkaia, we organised two days of events to explore temporary uses of underused spaces as a tool to achieve more sustainable and inclusive urban development. These events were part of Bilbao Bizkaia Design Week ’23.
During the first day, local public representatives, entities related to town planning, social companies, researchers, educators, and university students visited the prototypes created by students and the local T-Factor coalition in the La Ribera de Deusto quarter.
Additionally, visitors discovered the creative spaces that collaborate in this initiative and that are a part of this innovation ecosystem located in the former Artiach factory
The second day of events was focused on an up-close discovery of three success stories based on temporary uses of space to generate social and economic value in the local environment:
Blivande (Stockholm), an experiment with a small self-managed city where artistic and social entrepreneurship projects co-exist, with the objective of creating a sustainable ecosystem.
Communa (Brussels), a not-for-profit organisation that uses the temporary occupation of empty spaces as a tool to achieve a more affordable, democratic, and creative city.
The T-Factor Euston pilot, which through activities led by the local community, has developed a strategy to foster local culture and a feeling of belonging.
Finally, we conducted a workshop with professionals in innovation and urban and social development to debate how cities can promote and facilitate the practise of “temporary uses ” and integrate them into their strategy. https://espacioopen.com/transicionessostenibles-tfactor/
Urban innovators are up-and-coming professionals who combine many different disciplines and kinds of knowledge: architecture and town planning, but also skills linked to facilitation and participation, services design, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. The European project Eureka aims to design and start up an innovative studies plan to train the urban innovators of the future.
European Projects: Eureka
Espacio Open is one of the members of the European project Erasmus+ Eureka, a consortium of 11 partners that began in 2020. After the project’s initial phase, devoted to designing the new training programme, the first edition of Eureka Urban Innovators Training Programme was launched in October 2022. This was a unique opportunity for multi- disciplinary learning with the participation of students from four European cities: Amsterdam, Bilbao, Timisoara, and Venice.
Jointly designed between universities, companies, social initiatives, and public administrators from all around Europe, this multi-disciplinary programme is especially learning-oriented and based on practise, by developing real projects. The objective is to train new professionals who can manage the transformation of urban spaces.
The learning process was structured around four Urban Living Labs, each of them headquartered in one of the participant cities.
The consortium consists of partners from Bilbao, Italy, the Netherlands, and Romania, including:
Iuav University of Venice
University of Timisoara
University of Deusto
Municipality of Timisoara
LAMA Agency
Melting Pro
Trans Europe Halles
Casa Blai Association
Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Stiching P60.
https://espacioopen.com/eureka/
Projects: Eureka
The Urban Living Lab concept is a participatory learning focus where students face real urban challenges and attempt to design proposals in collaborative fashion, applying what they learned from the training process. Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, each one of the local Eureka teams worked in their own Urban Living Lab, exploring local challenges to come up with possible solutions.
Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, the team of students from the local Eureka cluster developed an urban innovation project located in the La Ribera de Deusto - Zorrotzaurre neighbourhood. During the year, students analysed the local context and the challenges the neighbourhood is facing socially, economically, and environmentally. As of this point, they designed a prototype to explore new solutions through urban innovation.
The Bilbao cluster Urban Living Lab was developed in Fab Lab Bilbao’s facilities, Espacio Open&’s digital fabrication laboratory. From November 2022 through October 2023, students used this laboratory to develop their prototype. The project designed by the team consisted of making an alternative route through the La Ribera de Deusto - Zorrotzaurre quarter. With QR codes located at different points around the island, the team created a new digital layer with contents related to the history of the postindustrial area, now in the midst of transformation.
The results from this process, as well as the prototypes developed by the European project’s other teams, were introduced at the Eureka Bilbao International Short School event, held at Espacio Open.
https://espacioopen.com/eureka-urban-livinglab-bilbao/
After 12 months of intense work, the European Erasmus+ Eureka project reached the home stretch when it held its last student event, Bilbao International Short School.
From 23 through 27 October 2023, students from the international teams met in Bilbao to k h i fi l j d h
During the Bilbao International Short School event, students spent a day on discovering the ecosystem of cultural and creative projects in the La Ribera de Deusto neighbourhood and the former Artiach factory, as well as inspiring urban innovation proposals like Pezestudio.org’s Biotic City project.
The proposals developed by students during the first edition of Eureka Urban Innovators Training (2022-2023) were:
The Romania team made a short film telling the story of the Flavia market area.
The Bilbao cluster collected the neighbourhood’s untold stories with a QRcode route around the island.
The Italian team made a board game that tells the story of Guidecca island in Venice.
The Dutch cluster made an interactive map of the Bajes Quarter in Amsterdam.
These solutions allowed students to put what they learned into practise and use creativity
g y p p g g together a diverse base of players to create opportunities to support up-and-coming creative profiles. As a member of the DDP network, Espacio Open drives activities every year that are focused on bringing digital fabrication technologies to creators and makers so they can apply them to their projects. The consortium consists of 20 members, including cultural centres, universities, fab labs, public institutions, and entities associated with design. https://espacioopen.com/distributed-design-platform/
Maker
Danish Design Center
OpenDot
Politecnico de Lisboa
Happy Lab
IAAC
Innovation Center Iceland
P2P Lab
Pakhuis De Zwijger
Re:publica
Polifactory Politecnico di Milano
Ars Longa Fab Lab Budapest
Fab City
Spanish Ministry of Culture
MAO Architectural Museum
Ljubljana
Global Innovation Gathering
Design & Crafts Council
Ireland
At Espacio Open, we organise training tours and educational experiences to discover methods of creation related to digital fabrication, creative technologies, and the principles of open knowledge. Throughout 2023, several educational centres, public representatives, and cultural entities came to discover our digital fabrication laboratory Fab Lab Bilbao and the projects we have underway at the cultural centre. https://espacioopen.com/visitas/
With Professors Maialeta Mendia and Iban Altuna, students from the illustration course at the IDarte art school came from Vitoria-Gasteiz to visit Espacio Open to discover our cultural centre and all the activities, as well as the cultural model with which we work. December 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-alumnado-ilustracion-idarte/
GIF is a university degree to train young entrepreneurs that was inspired by the Team Academy network methodology. A team with over 30 students and educators came to visit Zorrotzaurre’s creative initiatives as part of their journey to create connections with the Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s LEINN degree. May 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/universidad-bremerhaven-visita/
Every year, this educational centre schedules tours of our digital fabrication laboratory Fab Lab Bilbao so that students can discover innovative models in the field of Cultural and Creative Industries. During these tours, students delve into digital fabrication technologies as tools to create innovative projects. May 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-nantes-ecole-2023/
Students from this Higher School of Architecture located in Lyon came to discover projects related to cultural and creative industries at the Artiach factory. April 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-arquitectura-esail/
Students from the Engineering in Industrial Design Degree at the University of Deusto visited the Fab Lab Bilbao digital fabrication laboratory. March 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/estudiantes-universidad-deustofab-lab-bilbao/
Representatives from Helsingor Town Hall in Denmark, related to culture and tourism, visited Espacio Open as part of their educational trip to Bilbao, focused on discovering the city’s cultural projects and their socioeconomic impact. July 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-helsingor-dinamarca/
Students from the CoMediA degree, taught by the Bordeaux Montaigne University, came to Espacio Open to discover our creative project. This group of students is training to become professionals in design and cultural project development. November 2023.
https://espacioopen.com/visita-universidad-bordeaux/
A group of students from the educational centre Collège Jacques Prévert visited Espacio Open to discover the ecosystem of cultural projects at the Artiach factory. Students from this school, located in the Rhône-Alpes region, came to visit the Fab Lab Bilbao digital fabrication laboratory. February 2023. https://espacioopen.com/visita-college-jacques-prevert/
Throughout 2023, Espacio Open and its different lines of activity have appeared in over twenty media outlets locally, nationally, and internationally. https://espacioopen.com/apariciones-en-medios/
El Correo November 2023
El Correo newspaper came to know the scanning and printing project of residents for the Muro de la Memoria. www.elcorreo.com
EITB Radio
November 2023
The La Mecánica del Caracol show reported on Maker Faire Bilbao’s activities. https://eitb eus
EITB Radio
November 2023
The Sun October 2023
The British newspaper The Sun reported on the Vintage Bilbao project and Espacio Open’s weekend activities
www.thesun.co.uk
Deia October 2023
EITB Teleberri November 2023
EITB news came to cover creative technology activities at Maker Faire Bilbao 2023. www eitb eus
Crónica Vasca August 2023
Journalists of the newspaper Deia came to discover Vintage Bilbao and the Vintage Club events. https://deia eus
El Periódico Viajar February 2023
We participated in the show Distrito Euskadi with Maker Faire Bilbao’s activities. https://eitb.eus
El Periódico Viajar mentions Espacio Open as one of alternative Bilbao’s tourist attractions. https://viajar.elperiodico.com
The newspaper Crónica Vasca defines Espacio Open as a place to discover in Bilbao. https://cronicavasca elespanol com
Crónica Vasca April 2023
The newspaper Crónica Vasca reports the post-industrial history of the former cookie factory. https://cronicavasca.elespanol.com
Deia
March 2023
Holland Herald KLM
March 2023
The newspaper Deia shares the creative and cultural ecosystem of the former Artiach cookie factory. https://deia.eus
airline KLM’s magazine includes Espacio Open in its entertainment suggestions for Bilbao.
https://holland-herald.com
National Geographic January 2023
The Travel section of National Geographic magazine includes Espacio Open in its guide on Bilbao.
https://viajes nationalgeographic com
La SER
November 2023
to speak about creative technologies and Maker Faire Bilbao.
https://cadenaser com
EITB
March 2023
The show Nos echamos a la calle gives a live report from Vintage Club event.
https://eitb.eus
EITB
January 2023
Our Vintage Bilbao second hand shop on EITB’s news
https://eitb.eus
As a player related to the cultural and social ecosystem, Espacio Open has participated in several events over the course of 2023, both locally and in Europe, and internationally. Through these activities, we continue to forge networks, broadening connections with similar projects and supporting initiatives to foster cultural innovation.
Espacio Open participated as a cultural player within the active listening process implemented by Bilbao Town Hall to draw up the Strategic Culture Plan for Bilbao 20232033. We collaborate with working groups to collaboratively build this new plan, with the cross-cutting group Análisis y gestión de los diferentes públicos de la cultura (Analysis and Management of Different Cultural Audiences), as well as the group Sector de las Industrias Creativas (Creative Industries Sector). The Plan is available on the Bilbao Town Hall website. https://espacioopen.com/plan-estrategicocultura-2033/
In June 2023, we participated in Port Cities, arts, culture, and creativity in Dockland regeneration, an event designed to converse about the future of urban spaces, with a special focus on port zones and zones with an industrial past that are being revitalised through cultural and creative initiatives. The entire event is available online. https://espacioopen.com/espacio-open-casoestudio-docklands/
In every European city, thousands of empty square metres of unused offices and venues accumulate. What should we do with these spaces? 22 June, we participated in the event Conversations by the cooperative Plateau Urbain, in Paris, with a workshop devoted to temporary town planning and its role in the cities of the future. During the conversation, we shared the Zorrotzaurre case and the temporary uses that have arisen through the social and associative network over the years. https://espacioopen.com/encuentrosconversations-plateau-urbain/
Under the Eureka project, the consortium of European partners and students was invited to The Bay Awards Premiere, an international conference with the participation of some of the most important international players in innovation and sustainable urban development, including Charles Landry, Carlos Moreno, and Gabriella Gómez-Mont. The event was held by Bilbao Metropoli30. https://espacioopen.com/bay-awards/
In May, we travelled to Romania to participate in the event Timisoara International Short School, organised under the European project Eureka. For 5 days, we worked alongside the other partners to develop this cross-cutting educational programme to train new urban innovators.
In March, we participated in the general event by the T-Factor consortium along with the other partners. We discovered temporary town planning projects with a social impact in Brussels, including initiatives like the Communa association, the Marais Wiels collective, the community garden Potager de la Senne, and more.
On the second day, we conducted a workshop focused on debating the role of temporary uses to move toward more inclusive and resilient cities. We explored how temporary uses can open up new frameworks against the challenge of climate change in cities. https://espacioopen.com/encuentrotfactor-bruselas/
Espacio Open participates in different international networks related to technological, social, and cultural innovation. These connections mean we can be at the cutting edge of technology and mutually draw from likeminded players, boosting shared knowledge.
We belong to the global Maker Faire festival network of producers and have participated in the Maker Faire Global Producers meetups since 2012.
https://makerfaire.com/
Through the Fab Labs network and the Distributed Design project, Espacio Open is a partner of the New European Bauhaus, a European Commission initiative to boost design and culture as a tool for transformation. https://new-european-bauhaus.europa.eu/
Fab Lab international network of laboratories. Fab Lab Bilbao is a member of this network of laboratories. Espacio Open attends the different global Fab Lab Conferences. https://www.media.mit.edu/
We are the regional contact in the Basque Country for this global network and have participated in different editions with our own projects, in collaboration or with the support of the organisation in Nevada, Lithuania, Sweden, Spain, and Denmark. https://burningman.org/
Espacio Open is a founding member of the Red Estatal de Centros de Creación y Fabricación Digital (National Network of Centres for Creation and Digital Fabrication), along with other national Fab Labs and Makerspaces.
NEREADÍAZ
Espacio Open Founder and Director
LAURAFERNÁNDEZ
KARIMASRY
Espacio Open Creative Director
IÑIGOARROITAJAUREGUI
Administration Manager
LEONORRODRÍGUEZ
Cultural Mediation Coordinator
JULIÁNTROTMAN
Creative Residences Technological Mediation
MARTASANZ
Manager of Vintage Bilbao
GUILLERMOMARTÍNEZ
Video Content Coordinator
ALBERTELORDUY
Musical Mediation
Espacio Open would not be possible without the collaboration of the Department of Culture of the Basque Government, BEAZ of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Economic Promotion area of Bilbao City Council, as well as the dozens of local, national and international suppliers and collaborators who have participated in the various programs and projects developed during 2023. Among them, Studio Petit Muller, Godot Studio, Epic Films, CG Barrios, Busman View, MAC Asesores, Rémy Eylettens, Bilbao-Bizkaia Tourist Office, Department of Tourism, Consumption and Commerce of the Basque Government, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, IED Kunsthal, UPV-EHU, San Luis Bilbao Training Center, CPIFP Harrobia, Elorrieta Errekamari Ikastetxea, Peñaskal Foundation, Noiz Agenda, I Love Bilbao, ABZ, Impresiones Fika, Cianoplan, Traducciones Bitez, Viveros Fadura, Santana 27 and Buzoneos Kalea, among many other organizations.
