Letters to the Sun Ladies

The 2018 edition featured The Sun Ladies, a virtual reality film that transported viewers to the front line with a troop of Yazidi female guerrilla fighters battling ISIS. After watching the film, the audience was invited to write a letter of support to these women. These letters were translated and later sent to the Sun Ladies, who responded by sending Getxo images of themselves reading them on the front line.

Tribute to Xavier Barral by Christian Caujolle

The news broke all of a sudden, on the morning of the 16th of February. Xavier Barral had died abruptly. The anguish and deep sadness of  all the photograpgers, artists, graphic artists, journalists, editors, writers or simple admirers that gathered together in his funeral were proportional to the meaning of his definitive absence.

After studying graphic design, he worked briefly as press photographer. After that he performed the functions of artistic director at titles so different as a medical magazine or a monthly avant-garde publication that combined writing an photography. All that happened before 1992, when he founded, together with his wife Annette, the graphic design and cultural communication agency Atalante. He worked for many publishing houses and, finally, in 2002 he created de publishing agency that has his name.

Always looking to innovate and improve, this artisan put all his knowledge to the service of the authors –mostly photographers- and artists, considering each book an object itself. A unique object for which he looked for, all over the world, different papers he would print with mixes of inks he would invent.

Remains the impressive catalogue, eclectic and stict, made by a lover of the image and its meaning. And the hope that it can continue enriching itself with de continuity of the activity.

Kaiola Creation Laboratory

We´ve taken over the Basque Museum for three days and transforming it into a production studio in which the participants have used tools such as photogrphy, writing or drawing – using photocopy as a basic reproduction form- to approach the museum’s archive and collections from a contemporary way of looking. As a result of this experimental documentation at the museum, the participants have created a field book around their experiences.

The laboratory has had two incredible guests. On the one hand, Jon Cazenave, who have approached the theme of “territory” and provided keys regarding the making of the books. On the other hand, Marta Jiménez, historian and head of the Photography department at the Basque Museum, has given us her vision and historical prespective. The resulting field books was exposed during the opening week of the Festival.

Pixel, family workshop

Inspired by the fantastic robot books by Philippe Ug, and guided by Elena Detalleres, we dared to make pop-up cards; we invented scenarios and words from the future with stickers, scissors, post-it notes, stickers and books. And we ended up with a surprise installation. Bringing together children, books and art, we used different tools to explore, learn and have fun through play. 

Marmitako

After spending a morning during Opening Week listening to the artists who travelled to Getxo to talk about their projects on this unique tour guided by curator Monica Allende, all those in attendance enjoyed a popular marmitako (traditional Basque dish) that we ate together in María Cristina Park