20/10/2010
Europes
Different venues, Barcelona
Contemporary Culture Festival Barcelona
From 21 October to 14 November 2010 Barcelona welcomes the first edition
of EUROPES, Contemporary Culture Festival, in close collaboration with
over 200 cultural spaces in the city, working simultaneously on a joint
initiative to reveal the trail currently being blazed by European creation.
For the first time Barcelona plays host to a festival with the scope to bring
together the city’s different cultural systems, both public and private.
EUROPES aims to be a catalyst for talent that interconnects and reinforces
networks, both locally and throughout Europe.
For over three weeks, EUROPES will shake up Barcelona’s cultural calendar
with a multidisciplinary programme of over 250 activities from over 30
European countries, including performances, roundtables, talks, meetings
and screenings throughout the whole city.
A series of special guests will form part of a packed programme of events and
activities for debate on plastic and visual arts, film, music, theatre, opera,
literature, cuisine, design, dance and architecture. The guest speakers
include Czech writer Ivan Klíma, Irish writer John Banville, Spanish stage
director Calixto Bieito and French stage director Olivier Py, the Swiss
inventor of concrete poetry, Eugen Gomringer, English visual artist Marcus
Coates, architect Carme Pigem and the director of the British production
centre Gasworks, Alessio Antoniolli.
The festival also includes a major space for examining current European
models of cultural management, and thought-provoking debate on the new
paradigms of contemporary creation. The festival will also host the 1st Europes
Conference on European Production Centres and Platforms, a three-day
meeting which this year will bring together the heads of the top twenty
production centres in Europe.
EUROPES has set up the ‘WelcomeEUROPES’ cultural exchange
programme for young Europeans – open to university students in
Barcelona – which will forge close ties between budding creators throughout
Europe in the field of plastic and performing arts, film and design.
Starting on 21 October, EUROPES is
the new festival created by La Fábrica designed to showcase the latest
cultural and artistic trends in Europe. Until 14 November it will make the
city the epicentre for contemporary European creation.
EUROPES presents a wide range of contents in different areas, including
plastic and visual arts, performing arts, music, film, literature,
architecture, cuisine and design. The festival features a crosscutting
programme that reveals the rich and complex cultural fabric throughout
Europe today and which will shake up Barcelona’s cultural calendar with
over 250 activities, including screenings, performances, talks, meetings,
exhibitions and conferences.
For three weeks, this new city festival will turn Barcelona into a gateway
to Europe. In order to reach the widest possible audience, EUROPES is
working with the city’s leading cultural centres, including the TNC,
MACBA, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Sala Beckett, Museu Picasso, Mercat de les
Flors, L’Auditori, and CaixaFòrum, amongst others. They will be joined by
30 civic centres and 36 public city libraries, over 60 art galleries, and a large
number of bookshops, art schools, universities and restaurants, among over
200 spaces.
Thanks to this consensus, the festival brings together the city’s many
different cultural systems, both public and private. EUROPES aims to be
a catalyst for talent that interconnects and reinforces networks, both
locally and throughout Europe. This key aspect will ensure that Barcelona
can present a wide-ranging programme that will throw the spotlight on the
latest creative trends across Europe.
Among the hundreds of activities being held under the umbrella of
EUROPES, on 10, 11 and 12 November there will be an unprecedented
symposium bringing together the leading production centres in Europe.
The 1st Europes Conference on European Production Centres and
Platforms will be a three-day meeting designed to share, compare and
contrast different lines of action at the top European creation centres,
set out new ideas for the future and set up an exchange and communication
network between centres to collaborate on short- and medium-term projects.
EUROPES has invited the twenty heads of the top twenty centres
from twelve countries in Europe to come to Barcelona, including Alessio
Antoniolli, director of Gasworks (United Kingdom ), Gerfried Stocker,
director and curator of Ars Electronica (Austria), Ludger Orlok, director
of Tanzfabrik (Germany), Stine Hebert, new director of the Baltic Art
Centre (Sweden), Chus Martínez, chief curator at Macba (Barcelona), and
Pablo Berástegui, coordinator of Matadero (Madrid).
EUROPES activities are arranged in three major sections: the Official
Programme, containing the bulk of the main activities, mostly linked to
some of the city’s benchmark cultural spaces; the OFF Programme, made
up of a generous programme of parallel activities to enrich the Official
Programme; and WelcomeEUROPES, created by EUROPES with Barcelona
training and education centres, including a range of exchange activities, a
pilot bedsharing programme and a creation campus. Anyone interested
in welcoming students from Europe can get more information on the
EUROPES website.
PR & PRESS Barcelona
Gustavo Sánchez M. +34.669.83.69.07 prensa@europes-festival.eu
International Press
Vanesa Uceda T.+34 91 298 55 14 vuceda@lafabrica.com
EUROPES is an initiative by La Fábrica, set up in 1994 and the force
behind activities such as PHotoEspaña festival, one of the most prestigious
international photography festivals; magazines such as Matador, OjodePez
and Eñe; a publishing house and art gallery specialising in photography
and visual arts; several internet platforms; two Master’s courses in cultural
engineering; centres such as La Casa Encendida; and initiatives such as Book
Night and Theatre Night in Madrid.
In 2009 La Fábrica opened its space in the heart of the Poble Sec
neighbourhood in Barcelona: a former umbrella factory reconverted into a
cafe, bookshop, art gallery and offices for creating new projects in Catalonia.