It is not easy, nor the usual, to find in a city as elegant and rich as San Sebastian industrial areas that today retains Mundaiz Street. Even less so if this area is located near Tabakalera and the bus and train station and on a side of the Gladys Enea Park. Therefore, it can be said that their spaces, including the Dabadaba Hall, are at a point of fragility, resisting interventions in the real estate field that favor a prosperity of brawls. Since this crossroads he has been working for five years AZPI Kultur Elkartea, a space managed by architects, designers, filmmakers, illustrators and artists among others. Currently, fifteen members give shape and warmth to the creative space of two floors located in the district of Egia.

On the second floor of the AZPI they work around a large rectangular wooden table and behind the large computer screens. This is how I see them every Thursday, when I approach him to pick up the vegetable basket of the week: some working very well on plans, elevations and render, others giving the final touches to the poster they have designed and working on films that are about to release funds. It is a bright and comfortable space thanks to the heating they have on frequently if they are in their interior temperate. The wooden shelves are full of materials and if we go through the hallway of the old warehouse, we will find pieces of methacrylate, paint boxes, the tools needed to work the carpentry and the study set of the photographer Andoni Beristain. The ground floor is used as a space for exhibitions and representations, and the large blue frame window connects the AZPI with the outside.

In its creation, AZPI was conceived as a working space, as a coworking place, a working place to develop personal work of its own. Gradually, among those who shared a work space every day, a desire arose to promote and create other projects and projects: they wanted to work together and believed that they could carry out interesting projects based on their interdisciplinary practice. On the other hand, they perceived that in the city there was a lack to show the works of creators beyond artistic institutions and to create other dynamics. In addition, they wanted to build other types of relationships in the neighborhood and with the neighbors. In response, AZPI opened the door to take initiatives such as book presentations, screenings, recordings, pop-ups, etc. Currently they continue to organize all kinds of initiatives, the last one is the presentation of the book of Aritz Galarraga Gogoan dut.

Since the desire to organise these activities and stabilize their own programme, the ATEA exhibition programme has been launched since 2019, a series of presentations that are organised four times a year and that last for a week. The objective of the program is to give the presence of contemporary art in non-institutional spaces and activate the artistic activity of San Sebastian rethinking the cultural landscape of the city. With the support of the Eremuak project of the Basque Government, six exhibitions have already been organized by the sub-members. Each edition has its own character and, often, the curator of each exhibition is decisive to know the scope of the exhibition – film, architecture, visual arts – or its character. In addition, they publish with each of the exhibitions a publication that collects interviews or reflections of the participating artists.

Although in most cases these are exhibitions presented in space, there have also been organized editions that have spread throughout the neighborhood. An example of this is the fanzine, artist book and self-publishing fair organized last March under the title Atera. The shops and bars of Egia, the tattoo shops and the superbugs, packed sixteen spaces in total, of publications and of their authors. More than 40 authors and editorials participated in this exhibition. The AZPI space itself became a bookstore, as hundreds of publications were put on sale at the design tables and furniture created for the day. The neighborhood and its creators constituted an interesting meeting point for the community, a cultural initiative that creatively transformed the traditional dynamics of the neighborhood.

In early November 2020, under the title Nine Ways to Sit, they looked at the design of objects and invited nine designers, architects and artists from the Gipuzkoan capital to design and build their own stool. In this exhibition, nine chairs occupied the exhibition space of the AZPI for a week. Made from various materials: iron, wood, flooring and seat furniture that allowed an imaginary step from the simplest to the most complex forms. This project raised the lack of interest and opportunity for the design of furniture in the Basque context; perhaps from this concern and in order to address this lack, some of the designers who participated in the exhibition have created the collective Moduz. The objective of the partnership is to serve as a meeting point and showcase for young Basque designers. With this intention, on 6 October the Bloom (La Floración) exhibition was organized in the park of Gladys Enea and in different corners of this green area a temporary installation has been made with furniture of different design. It is worth getting lost in the autumn beauty of Gladys Enea and discovering the creations of these designers along with scrublers or fountains.

Under the title I Want to Be With You Everywhere (I want to be anywhere with Zu), the sixth edition of Atea opened on October 29. It has seen works by artists working in the Basque context, together with works by artists who have gone through AZPI, once again demonstrating that artistic proposals can be made visible in an alternative circuit.