The Artoteka in Barakaldo: the novel idea of borrowing art

Taking a library approach to promoting local art production

The Barakaldo City Council, in the Basque Country of Spain, reported plans to unveil a new exhibition of young artists, called Artoteka. The idea behind the initiative (whose name is a portmanteau of the Spanish words for ”art” and “library”) is to grant the possibility to local residents to borrow the exhibited works the same way they would borrow a book from a library.

This will be the first platform for the loan of art that seeks to integrate the work of artists from the region and thus promote the dissemination of works and the professionalization of the creators. The artworks can be borrowed for a minimum of 3 months.

How does Artoteka work?

Artoteka is part of a collection of multidisciplinary works by seventeen local artists, which are articulated around a series of themes, such as collaboration and common, ecology and nature, fantasy and speculation, ritual, identity and memory, critical technologies and everyday life. The concept of the art on display is that it links intimately to other areas of knowledge.

People interested in these works can select a work to borrow for their homes, offices or study places for at least 3 months. To activate each loan, mediation activities are designed based on the space and the needs and interests of the user and the artist. In this way, meeting spaces are created between artists and communities to reflect collectively on the works and their meanings.

Artoteka arises from the collaboration between the artists' associations Karraskan, Sarean and Wikitoki within the European project Reshape. This activation of Artoteka, in Barakaldo, is subsidized by the Department of Culture of the Basque Government and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.