Street Art and Intangible Heritage : a contextualising approach to public art in Vitoria-Gasteiz

This paper presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the city of VitoriaGasteiz, capital of the Basque country, between the 4th and the 8th of December 2017. In the last decade, Vitoria-Gasteiz has become internationally known thanks to its urban gallery of public mural art. The murals of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in fact, were one of the main attractions of the city when it got the recognition of European Green Capital in 2012.1 They started being produced by the IMVG project in 2007 on the same basis of sustainability as the general agenda of the city. This cultural agenda became a world-class reference in the field of cultural heritage studies, management and the archaeology of architecture thanks to the project Abierto por Obras (Open for works) that integrated sustainability within the research and development processes of excavating, restoring, repairing, consolidating, documenting and 1.European Comission, n.d.. ‘2012 Vitoria-Gasteiz’. Environment. European Green Capital. (retrieved online, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2012-vitoria-gasteiz/, 24-11-2018) vo l.6 1 , n r5 . Ju ly th e 10 th , 2 01 9 IS BN : 1 13 973 65 4 PO LI S RE SE AR CH C EN TR E. U ni ve rs ita t d e Ba rc el on a DOI: https://doi.org/10.1344/waterfront2019.61.6.6 exhibiting the Gothic cathedral of St. Mary through cultural interpretation.2 That program became an example of good practice recognized internationally and attracting people such as Ken Follet, who presented A World without End, his sequel to The Pillars of Earth, in the building.3 The emphasis on sustainability makes the IMVG an exceptional case-study within the current Street Art world, where normally expressions tend to be more ephemeral. One of the most singular aspects of the IMVG is its working methods based on community practice, social engagement and public participation.4 The combination of these particular features makes the IMVG an exceptional case in the Iberian peninsula, where many Street Art festivals and projects developed quickly and produced large pieces of public mural art in parallel to the IMVG since the 2000s.


Resum
Aquest article presenta els resultats del treball de camp etnogràfic dut a terme a la ciutat de Vitòria-Gasteiz, capital del País Basc, entre el 4 i el 8 de desembre de 2017. A la darrera dècada, Vitòria-Gasteiz és coneguda internacionalment gràcies a la seva urbanització. galeria de l'art mural mural públic. Els murals de Vitòria-Gasteiz, de fet, van ser un dels principals atractius de la ciutat quan va obtenir el reconeixement de la Capital Verda Europea el 2012 9 . Van començar a ser produïts pel projecte IMVG el 2007 sobre les mateixes bases de la sostenibilitat que el general agenda de la ciutat. Aquesta agenda cultural es va convertir en un referent de primer ordre en el camp dels estudis sobre patrimoni cultural, gestió i arqueologia de l'arquitectura gràcies al projecte Abierto por Obras que va integrar la sostenibilitat en els processos de recerca i desenvolupament de l'excavació, restauració, reparació , consolidant, documentant i exposant la catedral gòtica de Santa Maria mitjançant la interpretació cultural 10 . Aquest programa es va convertir en un exemple de bones pràctiques reconegudes internacionalment i atraient gent com Ken Follet, que va presentar A World without End, la seva seqüela de The Pillars of Earth, a l'edifici 11 . L'èmfasi en la sostenibilitat fa que l'IMVG sigui un cas excepcional en el món actual de l'art de carrer, on normalment les expressions solen ser més efímeres. Un dels aspectes més singulars de l'IMVG són els seus mètodes de treball basats en la pràctica comunitària, la participació social i la participació pública 12 . La combinació d'aquestes particularitats fa que l'IMVG sigui un cas excepcional a la península Ibèrica, on molts festivals i projectes de Street Art es desenvolupen ràpidament i produeixen grans peces murals públiques en paral·lel a l'IMVG des dels anys 2000. Siqueiros was a pioneer in incorporating the public space of street into the creative processes for the innovative works he produced and theorized within a well-established art discourse in 1934 in Los Angeles, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires. 19 They led him to experiment with new materials and to incorporate the street context as well as other factors that scholars have considered to be defining in the creative processes of current Street Art practice. 20 Between the 1930s and the mural art revival of the 1970s, there is little information within the art establishment which does not correspond with empirical evidence, in the sense that mural art did not stop being produced at the street. 21 During that time, mural art became an expression of subaltern ethnicities in America such as the Latin, the Hispanic or the Afro. It was considered as a folk expression to the point that gallerists used the term Urban Folk to name the first exhibitions of works made by people painting at the streets for a while in New 13. -Iosifidis, K., 2009 York in the 1970s instead than Street Art, 22 before the latter became normalised.
By the 1970s, therefore, the practices of mural art were closely related to particular social communities, so they became the factual expression of their intangible cultural heritage.
It was not until 2003 that UNESCO established the criteria to define the intangible cultural heritage as 'a mainspring of cultural diversity and a guarantee of sustainable development' after the recommendations of 1989 and the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001, since it means 'the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills -as well as instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith -that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage', which are 'transmitted from generation to generation' and 'constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provide them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity', being indispensable criteria their compatibility with 'existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.  (retrieved online, http://www.muralismopublico.com/p/en/murals/vitoria-gasteiz/no-present-nor-futurewithout-memory.php, 24-11-2017) ; Asociación de Víctimas y familiares de Víctimas del 3 de marzo, 2014. 'El mural de Zaramaga sobre el 3 de Marzo listo para ser inaugurado'. Martxoak 3 de Marzo (retrieved online, http://www.martxoak3.org/el-mural-de-zaramaga-sobre-el-3-de-marzo-listo-para-ser-inaugurado/; https:// www.gasteizhoy.com/mural-3-de-marzo-zaramaga-inauguracion/, 24-11-2017) 25. -Gibson, J.J., 1977 workshop here under similar conditions. We did an indoor collaborative mural project for a cultural association. The participants enjoyed the workshop very much but understood that the true realm of muralism is outdoors: public. The people who participated in the workshop themselves wanted to do something bigger and outdoors. It took two years. We organized the first one in 2007 with nothing, just with a little support, independently, without doing any big project. We asked permission from the neighbours of the flat's community where we wanted to paint the mural. We were lucky that it was a central facade placed in the heart of the Casco Viejo (old town), in a square that was quite degraded (FIG 1). My sister Christina and I directed the process for the participative mural with thirteen male and female volunteers. It was a success. People liked it a lot and from then on we could start to develop something larger and to communicate the concept, the foundations of the project, which are participation, collaboration and providing "non-artists" with tools in order to make public art. Everything started from there.

SV:
And what was the response? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the participative methodology? Did you have some issues with the public in the city, censorship or something like that?

VW:
The formulation of the project is quite well based in the sense that we always believed the murals had to be participative from the beginning. They have to be collaborative and the design of the mural has to come from that process. That is to say, it is not an individual artist who designs his/her artwork and then carries it out with the people's support, but the people themselves who take part from the very conception of the idea. That means there is not a previous sketch or design that can be shown when asking for permission or funding. The owners of the facade, for example, are asked to give their permission for the mural without knowing what the mural will even be. That is the first difficulty in the sense that people have to be convinced to participate in something with an unknown result. When asking stakeholders, supporters and neighbours for something (funding, permissions, support, etc.), they inevitably reply with more questions: "What are you going to paint?" and we say "Ah.
We don't know…" "Well, but, more or less…?", they ask. "We don't know because everything is about the process.…" It was difficult at the beginning, but the people liked it once we had done several murals and we had considerably fewer problems in that sense, later on.
There were some building where the owners association did not want the mural and so we never insist. A community must commit to the process unanimously. We also had some other problems with institutions. It depends on who was in charge at that moment. If they asked for a sketch, for instance, we could not provide one and said " If you want a commissioned mural then ask for it, but that is not this. This is not our mission".
Another important factor is the artist that directs each project. Each project is led by an artist or team of artists that behave a little like a coach or a coordinator with artistic skills, actually has a more social aspect which is more inclusive and less aligned with the "art world". We neither come from the world of art nor the world of Graffiti. We come from a trend which is almost artistic social work. But it is true that even though we do come from that trend, they overlap.
They overlap and the quality... one of the main aims of the project I personally trust much is which neither the social nor the collaborative or participative aspects of a project nor working with people who are not artists must necessarily diminish the quality of the work, right? There is the idea that there is an either/or paradigm in art. Where there is participation or there is quality, but not both together. Moreover artistic quality is subjective, anyway. Therefore, one of our goals is to strive for these two things to co-exist in each project: participation and quality to attempt that those two things go hand in hand: participation and quality. It is not always achieved, but it is a goal.
And so, what happens? That nowadays there is a tremendous quality within Street Art. I wonder with people. I mean in painting. People used to say that painting was dead. When you went to museums in the past you almost could not see paintings in museums of Modern art. I think painting is coming back and the Street Art world will make a public showcase for many artists which, I think, is quite good. Also, Street Art has given a lot of life, culture, to many cities. [...] Furthermore, I note a tendency in artists working individually in the public space, the responsibility they have towards the communities they work in, more than the idea of the parachute artist who arrives, paints wherever and whatever he/she wants and leaves.

SV:
Genial. So this links with the last question: Which way have you integrated the processes of generating memory and identity within the project? Could you refer to any mural in particular or some murals in particular that more or less incorporated this? Though you just said all of them…

VW: Yes, actually every mural talks about the place since the first one, that was in Plaza de las Brullerías and does it about a 13th-century fabric market (FIG 1). It is almost like a still life of drapery, but it also tells about the cultural diversity that existed there in the
Middle Ages and the one nowadays. Therefore it refers to 20th and 21st-century migration, integration, and multiculturality. And so, then, all the murals. From the one that was done about equality (FIG 2), that was about particular subjects on equality at the Basque Country: the matriarchy; the evolution, let's say it like that, of the fight for gender equality; in which every figure is a portrait of people from the neighbourhood; to the one that more clearly deals with historical memory: the first one we did in Zaramaga about the 3rd of March (FIG 6 But may you also consider the matter of memory to end up with something you can say how you see it has evolved and how do you think it will evolve?

VW: In Vitoria in particular?
SV: Yes, in the scene… It is actually a quite particular project for the case of the Spanish state...

VW: Yes
SV: ...in which normally, generally, it is more about what you said on taking a painting from the living room and setting it at the street.

VW: Yes, yes. Now it's being done, as I told you before, in Catalonia. I have just been in Sant
Feliu de Llobregat and they are working on it, but with a renown artist (Escif) who is going to work thanks to an artists residency. 26 (1975)(1976)(1977)(1978) Then the graffiti "Justice" was written on the floor right over the crime scene with the blood of one of the first people murdered (FIG 3). That very symbolic place became a memorial space for the victims since the beginning. In 1986, a memorial sculpture was installed, it is still standing today (FIG 4). [It happened] in the 10th anniversary, because anything that was placed there before was quickly removed by the police. There were people arrested during the first years because they tried to place monoliths or to build something for the place. That is why we say the conquest of public space is very important, since the state that wants to forget and to cover what happened, thoroughly took charge that no one brought that to light because it may have broken the strategy, the portrait they wanted to establish. That is the reason this [the sculpture] was placed in the early morning with fast concrete in the The women were also involved because there were women who started working in factories.
Obviously, under Franco's regime, the role of women was limited to a housekeeper position, etc. But the process of industrialization itself resulted in women working for companies, so they also participated in the strikes. In fact, there were some factories in Vitoria-Gasteiz in which almost the whole staff were women. For instance, Areitio that was a zipper factory.
So the women also organized themselves in assemblies with the aim to join the strike and then they started participating. It is very honourable to see the women in the protests, in the demonstrations an so on. That clashed with another very interesting reality which is the one of the wives of the strikers, that opened up a very interesting conflict.
Then assemblies began forming all around the city in order to support the strike: neighbours, women, students. As l more and more people were organized, some arrests started to happen and people started being fired from work as well. Therefore they [the strikers]  value the small victories, but going from placing a sculpture secretly at night to [making it with] the recognition of the Council means that something has been achieved, isn't it?
The mural of IMVG is another great conquest (FIG 6) (FIG 7). It recreates an emblematic photo of the funerals. In front of the church there is a metal post with the portraits of the victims and an explanatory text written by the association itself that was placed by the Council (FIG 8)   So these priests allowed the assemblies to take place, not only in St. Francis but in many other churches of the city. There was a network of assemblies that allowed to organize the isolated ones into a larger assembly of assemblies. And priests were of course involved, some of them were even victims of reprisal because they took part in the process. The hierarchy was another matter, it was one of the pillars of the dictatorship, but of course, there were priests who got involved and that was one of the reasons the assemblies were so participative.

Conclusion
This ethnographic work provides a case study which demonstrates how Street Art may fit the UNESCO guidelines on intangible cultural heritage. In order to do so, the focus on processes is crucial. The key elements in this particular case study are many. The most evident is probably the survival of a community and participative tradition in Vitoria-Gasteiz based on dialogue and collective decision-making that adapted to changes along time. Moreover, Vitoria reveals a persistence in the use of Street Art practices such as graffiti, installations and mural art in public spaces as an expression of the interpretation of historical events by local peoples. The contextualizing approach followed up in this work in order to connect global and local issues shows some benefits in the methods of community mural art for the processes of enhancing and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage as well as producing social integration and human development. These intangible aspects are likewise related to the matter of sustainability since community concern necessarily has a positive effect in caring for the murals. The informants of Vitoria-Gasteiz showed how these artworks are not understood as a final product. But, more than objects, the murals themselves are perceived as processes embedded into a wider social dynamic in which aesthetic value comes out of social engagement to a larger extent than social acceptance, which is somehow subordinated to the former. Consequently, the IMVG sacrificed quantity production in order to enhance quality, both from material and intangible points of view and so aimed to emphasize sustainability. Finally, the subject matters of the IMVG murals in general and particularly the case of No present nor future without memory and the whole local knowledge related to the 3rd of March reveal themselves as idoneous to fit the criteria agreed internationally on intangible cultural heritage by which the promotion of human rights and mutual respect between communities are key factors of sustainability. murals are like a caress to a community.