In this episode we will discover whether there can be a connection between contemporary art and the rural world. Gerardo López, one of the driving forces behind the Néxodos initiative, a contemporary creation collective, tells us about it in this new episode. Néxodos, an initiative dedicated to creating quality artistic projects.
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Episode transcript
Pedro Abad, CEO of Asteo Red Neutra (PA): Welcome to “Connecting RURAL to the world”, a conversation space in which we will analyze the latest trends, innovations and challenges in the digitalization of the rural world. In each episode, we will talk with experts to understand how connectivity drives the rural world. Relaxed conversations about the issues that interest us, occupy us and concern us who live and work in rural areas. In this space we will share fascinating stories of companies and people who make a difference in small municipalities.
Hello, welcome to this new episode of “Connecting RURAL to the world”. On this occasion, we are going to tell you about an initiative that at first glance may seem to confront two opposing worlds, but you will see during the presentation that this is not the case. Contemporary art and the rural world. And for this we have Gerardo, Gerardo López.
Gerardo López is by training and profession a journalist, but above all and especially a contemporary art enthusiast. In addition, he is one of the driving forces along with seventeen other colleagues of the Néxodos initiative.
Néxodos is a contemporary creation collective and its motivation and objective is to create quality contemporary art content in the rural world.
Gerardo, welcome.
Gerardo López (GA): Hello, how are you? Well met and thank you very much. Both thanks, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present our Néxodos project on your video podcast.
(PA): Let’s start directly, how did Néxodos come about? Gerardo, tell us the story, it’s very exciting.
(GA): Well, Néxodos emerged as a response to a concern that a group of friends closely related to contemporary art had and that we also had in common that interest in contemporary art and interest in the rural environment.
So, at a meeting in my village, in San Román de Candamo, in Asturias, we saw the possibility through a historic building in the village that was a 19th-century mansion of indianos that later became a school, then a health center, until the 1990s it was a health center and residence for doctors.
So that building, at a given moment, the Health Department of the Principality of Asturias decided to build a new health center because the ownership of the building was diffuse ownership, they were not very clear who owned the building and of course, they had to make a very significant investment and so they made the decision to build a new health center and the building was closed and gradually deteriorated and it seemed to us that it was a metaphor for what happens with many things that have been vital in the life of villages, in the life of the rural environment and that are now in disuse or have disappeared or are in ruins, right?, like the building itself.
So well, with that idea and with that concern of bringing contemporary art to new territories, it seemed like a good solution to intervene in the old health center, intervene in it with 12 artists who made their artistic proposals in all the spaces that had been the health center or doctors’ offices, the waiting room, well, all the spaces that had been used as a health center was what we reopened and the artists intervened and the result was something magical, right? in a way.
Because the truth is that the people of the village responded enthusiastically and also the fact that the artists were present during the visits, well of course, facilitated the understanding of all the pieces and all the proposals was very great and we believed that, well, we had had a good idea and that it was worth doing something more, right? That it would not remain something isolated. And from there the Néxodos collective was born, which is seventeen people related to contemporary art and who live or work in the rural environment and who well, we develop projects with that contemporary language in the peripheries, in rural areas and talking about topics that go a bit beyond the usual discourse of spaces dedicated to contemporary art.
(PA): And here, in the end, Néxodos is a project that brings together contemporary art and the rural world. You explained to me that it was from the rural world, not bringing it to the rural world. Explain this to us.
(GA): The idea is that all the projects we develop are in territories where we have roots, that is, where we live, work or have a very deep connection with that territory. And also when we “cook” the project, so to speak, when we are generating it in the process to develop the project, we involve the communities in which it is developed in a very deep way.
In Néxodos we develop three projects:
One that is a contemporary art biennial that we do in San Román de Candamo, Asturias. Another called “Rehacer”, which is a proposal for interaction or rethinking pottery and traditional artisan knowledge from contemporary art and we bring artisans together with potters, and a third called “Nexo990” in Monzón de Campos, which is a village in the province of Palencia, where the town council rehabilitated the slaughterhouse and converted it into an artistic space and we have an agreement, Néxodos has an agreement with the town council to manage that space. And there what we do is exhibition proposals, concerts, and all kinds of activities around the exhibitions we are doing.
We try to make it from there, because we try to involve the people who live and work in the village, and involve them from all points of view, because bringing contemporary art from Madrid, or from Oviedo, or from an institution, to the villages, can be a bit foreign to people. And, however, when you are experiencing the entire process of creating the pieces, of the proposal that we finally offer to the public, you feel it as yours, it is yours, it is as much yours as the artist’s, because they are doing it in your house, or in your garden, or talking about a topic that concerns you a lot.
(PA): From this channel what we aim to do is always give visibility to initiatives, Gerardo, that generate wealth, that generate value for the rural world. So, we find the Néxodos project exciting, that from within the rural world, is carrying out an initiative that, at first glance, may seem as out of place as contemporary art in that context. What opportunities for development, for contemporary creation do you find in the rural world? Do opportunities present themselves?
(GA): Well, we find many opportunities in that contemporary art, from the point of view of our members, from the point of view of our collective, responds to the concerns of current people, with a current language, and that is valid in the urban environment, of course, but also in the rural environment. I mean that in the rural environment concerns arise, sometimes different, but very contemporary as well, and that have to do with what is happening today. The transformation, for example, of the rural environment, the loss of validity of many of the traditions, of many of the ways of life that existed before, and the incorporation now of new inhabitants in the rural environment, new concerns, the media, isolation, depopulation, housing problems, all that is material for the interventions of artists. We believe that the fact of generating cultural proposals, of quality, from the rural environment, has benefits as well, not only from the economic point of view, which of course it does, because in the end, although our association is a non-profit association, we develop projects that attract the public, in San Román, for example, in this last Biennial, which was last summer, four thousand people passed through there in ten days.
(PA): How many inhabitants?
(GA): A village that has three hundred and some inhabitants. So, well, that’s great. And then I think that the fact of producing culture, from the village, quality culture, or what we believe is quality culture, also generates a pride of belonging in the people who live in the village. We don’t only appear in the media for matters that have to do with depopulation, with an incident or with a misfortune, generally negative aspects.
(PA): And I also wanted to ask you, in relation to the impact that this activity generates, because Néxodos already has nine years of history.
(GA): Nine years, that’s right.
(PA): That’s already a very relevant trajectory. So, can you already observe any impact, any changes that are taking place in San Román, the places where you develop the activities?
(GA): Well, certainly. There is a very clear impact in Portillo, which has to do with the activity of the potters. And, moreover, a very positive impact, because from that relationship between potters and artists, between artisans and artists, new lines of work have been born for the potteries, linked with design, linked with art. And that, specifically, there are two potters who are increasingly focused on that type of work, which, moreover, of course, is work that has a greater added value. Not only that of craftsmanship and manual beauty, but also that of conceptual beauty or what art or design adds to those pieces.
So, that is a very important transformative effect. Another very important effect for us as well, which is the memory that remains of everything we are doing. Memory from the books we publish, the catalogs, everything on the web and on social networks. In Portillo we are creating a repository about the memory of pottery in the village, with images, documents, texts, reflections. We also record the elderly people who have memories of when there were fifty pottery workshops, etc. So, all that, The Silent Trace, a book we have just published of photographs of the pottery workshops that are closed in the village of Portillo, which is a beautiful thing, and all that forms a body that we contribute, we believe, from our humility, but that we contribute to reflection and current affairs.
(PA): At Asteo we refer to the rural world as we say that Spain is a rural country, due to its morphology, how we are organized at the municipal level, but also because we all have a rural origin. It’s a matter of going back a number of generations in your family, to see where you connect with the rural world, even if you are not today. And, therefore, we believe, fundamentally, in that concept of not forgetting our origins. Certainly, the proposal you are making is super interesting for anyone who is watching and listening to us, to be able to take it into their considerations, of destinations to visit, for example.
(GA): Of course, everything can be better informed than I tell it, for sure, on our website, which is Nexodos.art, there is all the information about all the projects, on our social networks as well, Néxodos, on Facebook, on Instagram, and I also invite them to watch a special program we have on the RTVE website, on RTVE Play, a Metrópolis program dedicated to Néxodos.
(PA): Let’s revisit some points you have raised, peripheries, the concept of peripheries. On the website, when we enter, Néxodos, contemporary art and peripheries.
(GA): Well, the peripheries, we not only refer to the rural environment, which is peripheral from the geographical or physical point of view, but we also talk about peripheries from the conceptual point of view, because our proposals usually address topics that are outside the concerns, normally, or the official discourses that surround contemporary art, and the spaces of museums, galleries. Normally, they are proposals that have a lot to do with the urban and that have a lot to do with a society that is quite far, in general, from the rural and from the concerns of the rural environment.
(PA): There is a certain correlation in the model we develop, where you spoke earlier about communications, connectivity, connecting, we call this channel connecting rural to the world, not only in the technological sense, but, precisely, this is a clear example, Néxodos connects that rural to the rest of the world. And I was very struck by how, even, you are generating connections between those points, between San Román and Valportillo, it is generating that connection. That’s why we are interested, in Castilla y León, for example, is one of the centers where we develop a lot of activity. I would like to talk with you, Gerardo, as I said a moment ago, about technology. What role does technology and connectivity have in this era, so advanced, for the rural world, and what are the foundations that a project like Néxodos needs to be able to establish itself in a municipality, for example?
(GA): Well, technology and connectivity for the rural environment is the guarantee of survival, nothing more and nothing less, I think that’s how it is.
Right now, any life project that can be developed in the rural environment, must have strong connectivity, that’s clear. Because otherwise, you are isolated and you die. Teleworking, the basis of teleworking, is connectivity. But then, not only that, leisure also has a lot to do with connectivity. But also, your access to consumption, for example, has a lot to do with connectivity. Because right now, fortunately, you can be in an Asturian mountain pasture, very remote, but access the books, movies, clothes, shoes, that interest you most, through the web. So, that is fundamental. To be able to develop a life project, with our needs, with the needs of an average person in the 21st century, connectivity in the rural environment is the only formula.
(PA): We spoke earlier about the Valladolid project, I would like to talk again about the “Rehacer” project, brought to the concept of sustainability, that of giving it a second life, that you told us, is something fantastic. Tell us a bit.
(GA): Well, sustainability is one of the concerns we are always working with. It is one of the pillars that is very present in all the projects we develop and in the concerns of the artists, both those who are part of the collective, and those we invite to participate in each of the editions.
In the specific case of “Rehacer” and pottery, well of course, if there is a sustainable activity, it is precisely pottery, which starts from clay, generates products that can then be recycled, reused, they return to become, they can return to become clay and can return to be something else.
But, moreover, the fact that a business like pottery and like many other traditional knowledge is sustainable, has a lot to do with our concerns, that it be sustainable from the economic, financial and personal fulfillment point of view as well. Precisely, this year it’s time. So we invite all your viewers and all your followers…
(PA): And ourselves
(GA): And yourselves, of course. …to come to Valladolid at the end of September. The dates are not yet finalized, but through the website it is a must. You cannot miss the third edition of “Rehacer”.
(PA): A question we always ask is mandatory, although you have already mentioned it several times, is to talk about your reference village, San Román.
(GA): Exactly
(PA): Tell us, San Román.
(GA): My reference village is San Román de Candamo, which is my father’s village, actually I was born in Oviedo, but I grew up and have been connected all my life to San Román de Candamo. And, well, it is for me a village in which I have had, apart from very happy moments, because they are almost always linked to weekends or vacations, so it is wonderful all the memories I have of San Román, but I also think it has contributed to some important aspects of my way of seeing things. Among them, the most prominent, I think is my desire for communication. In fact, I am a journalist and I dedicate myself to that, but in my village I have always experienced the fact that you went on the train, for example, I on weekends, my parents worked a lot and normally they didn’t close, they had a business and they didn’t close on weekends, so I, from quite young, went by train from Oviedo to San Román. And I arrived at San Román at the station and my family’s house is at the very top of the village. So, I crossed the entire village to get to my house. From the time I arrived in the village until I got home, I had already found out absolutely everything that had happened in the village, because you kept stopping, they kept asking, of course, they also found out your news, but you were finding out about all that.
So, it is a way of life that I have always lived in my village, which has a lot to do with familiarity, or with family in a broad sense, in which everyone, more or less, is aware of your life, of the joys, of the sorrows, and they are shared. That, for me, is very enriching and is a beautiful experience, and that, moreover, I continue to have and continue to practice whenever I go.
In my village we get together on Saturday mornings to work for the collective, and that is very important, and that generates a way of seeing things and a way of facing things that happen in the village very interesting, and that I think is part of the key to the success of Néxodos, or of the San Román biennial, at least, that people are so practiced in doing things together. Invite everyone to come. From Oviedo you can go by rail, phenomenal, a beautiful trip, all along the Nalón river, and we are 11 kilometers from the sea, in short, it is a wonderful village.
(PA): Second mandatory appointment of the conversation.
(GA): Second mandatory appointment.
(PA): Gerardo, we are reaching the end of this episode, for us they are episodes, and, moreover, very gratifying to see this angle that art and culture have contributed in this conceptualization of the rural world, that we see it from a technological field, but, certainly, the human being is also inherent to everything you are telling us today, and you have brought us a lot of reflections that we thank you enormously, it seems to us a very positive contribution.
(GA): Nothing, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to make our projects known and nothing more, we are at your disposal, of course, whenever you want us to talk about something that has to do with the rural environment, we are there, because if something unites all of us who are part of the Néxodos collective, it is precisely that, the concern for the rural environment and the interest in art.
(PA): To reciprocate minimally all the ideas you have reflected on, we have also brought you something. This is for you, as a thank you as well.
(GA): I’ll open it here, live.
(PA): As you wish, of course, well, as you feel most comfortable
(GA): How good it looks, how delicious, everything.
(PA): What we always aim for, we talk a lot about the rural world, but in the essential sense that we cannot forget that every day we feed ourselves from the rural world, every time we open the refrigerator or get up to the kitchen. So, the way to express this, to generate that reflection, is that we always try to generate a gift with artisan products produced in the rural world and that we all enjoy enormously.
(GA): Well, hey, wonderful, thank you very much. Besides all of them, I am very fond, especially of oil. So, thank you very much, really.
(PA): Thank you very much, Gerardo.
And to all of you, after having seen this new approach to contemporary art and its relationship with the rural world, we thank you for being with us once again and we invite you to subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss the new initiatives that we will tell you about as interesting and exciting as that of Néxodos, from the hand of Gerardo López.
Thank you very much.
