Eighth of Sancho el Sabio, in San Sebastián. In other words, and using the words of the interlocutors, “in the place of passage”, between the center and the football stadium, on the axis of the road access to the hospital. There it is, or at this point “was”, because the space of the artists Kontenedora is closed. Public works prevent progress.

To describe the area between Amara and Anoeta they have not used the word anything, as it is a place where shops and the flow of people and cars are located, but they have said that this is an environment that long ago remained outside the postcards. “And that, moreover, that Anoeta is here next door and that moves the crowd, especially in these years when Real is doing good seasons,” adds an interlocutor. Another, so anxious to differentiate the tone, wanted to nullify the idea that the area has been left out of the postcards: “When we say that this axis is outside the postcards, all respect to Txomin, Martutene and other neighborhoods.”

Behind all this, everyone has highlighted an idea: “Ultracentrification” of San Sebastian. Taking the squadron and the cartabon in an imaginary way, an interlocutor has marked the limits of the centrification on the map of the city: From the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd to the Old Town, from the Easo Square to the Ribera, and taking Gros roughly, “Donostia de postcards”. He adds: “What is happening here is exajerted.”

What has been said so far would surprise a few readers, since in one way or another it has been expressed in several pages. Well, leaving this centrification, from Easo Square to the football stadium, taking a venue from Sancho el Sabio Avenue, the artists who wanted to leave the "traditional schemes" began to organize themselves differently.

Asked about their characteristics, they have all highlighted self-management, interaction and creative freedom. “It is the relationship between many people who come from multiple branches to grow together, a cultural and artistic project because culture is a people.”

Tuesday's lentils are Culture
as a concept, and in any conversation in which the terms San Sebastian and San Sebastián cross as an urban model, it is impossible not to mention the European cultural capital of San Sebastián 2016. “It was a phenomenon,” they say.

When the subject comes up, a phenomenon is how people take their hands to their heads almost always. Few can say that this ambitious project met its cultural objectives. As Barcelonan anthropologist Manuel Delgado said in 2015, then only “culture as an excuse” was used, only as a “hook”, to launch the touristic fishing network to the sea, even more so. Xalba Ramírez received these and more statements in Irutxuloko Hitza in a magnificent report.

These words of Delgado are closely related to the idea that a Kontenedo interlocutor has put on the table: “Kontenedora is a space of Donostian cultural creation.” And dig deeper into the concept: “Imagine if your father said that in the kitchen he helps your mother, but actually he only does the paella on Sunday. That's Donostia. Zinemaldia, Jazzaldia, Horror Film Week... But on a Tuesday, what offer is there in the city? Anyone who is interested in culture, leaving cars, has nothing in San Sebastian. That’s why we’ve gone out a lot.”

The Kontenedora area is another attempt to bring foreign experiences to the Basque Country. The association consists of artists who look “out of the system” and finance the venue through partners. They believe that in its scope the vertical form of operation should be already revolutionized and, in some way, take steps towards the philosophical paradigm Rizoma: “No one can be sending because there is no one who knows everything or has an absolute truth. It is also a very patriarchal model. In our ways, we believe that anyone can influence and divert the direction of the project. Culture cannot be sown from top to bottom, culture is made from bottom. That is why we have mentioned before that culture belongs to the people. Our model is to apply tolerance to differences.”

Their goal is to make culture from the people and the people, but to do things under the bureaucracy meant that they were creating a partnership, looking for partners and spreading them only to partners. In this sense, it is, therefore, a space dedicated exclusively to the partners, which we could say is private, but which have performed many actions outside the premises, “because contemporary culture needs the street”. Bukowski, Dabadaba and Drop are examples of this. Literary representations, theatres, concerts, art exhibitions and other activities have been organized in these spaces.

Twelve months, nine closed They have been able to open
in such a short time, but they have achieved over 700 partners. “It’s for something, because people were hungry for these kinds of spaces,” the interlocutors say.

The space was closed at the time of the interview by municipal order. They are caught in the grip of bureaucracy, although they are optimistic in the short term.

Following the presentation of the plans and permits of the premises, the opening ceremony was held on St. Thomas Day 2022. A month later, after the complaint of a neighbor, who was drinking and smoking in the outside patio, the Municipal Guard appeared on the premises and asked for a “leave of action”. They were shocked because they had not been asked before.

The following day they went to the City Hall to request information, but Kontenedora members say they have not yet known exactly what that license is. They even say it doesn't exist, surprised. In fact, in associations similar to those they know, they have asked about this “ditxosa license” and nobody knows anything.

“A municipal technician is asking us until the last day for a document that doesn’t know very well what it is,” their interlocutors explain. One day, following the recommendation of the members of other associations consulted, presented in the City Hall the “notification of the actions”. That is, rather than licensing, notification. And then they were able to open -- because notification, in fact, is a notification document that is going to open it. Three days were the agents. “And to start again, it’s a joke.”

According to the members of the Consortium, they feel that the City Hall does not want such a place in the city, although many people think that it does not do night work. They undertake to close the space to a maximum of ten in the evening. “I understand that I don’t have permission to do concerts. But a dozen people get together with a sunset, grab an acoustic guitar and sing, is it a concert?” According to the interviewees, the City Hall of San Sebastian has focused on these types of points: for selling beer cans in a euro, they have been accused of “bar character”; for making pintxos and eating among attendees, “restaurant character”; and for organizing film screenings.

With the aim of contributing
"Also in tourism", an interlocutor, citing Berlin, San Francisco and other more international ones, has pointed out that there is underground cultural tourism in them. "Why not in Donostia? you said. "A slightly utopian idea," the other answered and laughed.

They have neither political intention nor conflict with the City Hall, so they do not think they are asked too much, they sincerely say: "Do we think there is at least one area entitled to develop Kontenedora peacefully? ".

They stress that they have joined the street culture and free creation, rather than hindering anyone. On the return, however, they have received only hindrances in the town where they acquired the cultural capital. But they've also been very fond of people, they stay with it.