This week marks the 30th anniversary of Encuentros de Arte in Genalguacil The small town in the mountains of Andalusia has become a beacon - promoting the role of art and culture in the dual struggle against depopulation and the consequences of climate change.
Encounters are confrontations with the limits of the possible. How can less than 500 inhabitants have an impact that stops the continuous decline of the rural population? What values must be created to prevent people from leaving their homes to seek work in the unsustainable tourist industry along the coast?
The answer is both simple and complex: Engaging artists to co-develop and co-create the tools to imagine a future that goes beyond the limits of what seems possible.
Genalguacil's Encuentros de Arte began in 1994. Since then, hundreds of artists have visited the town for short and long term residencies. But the work they created together with the residents (with hardly any funding) remained the property of the local community. In 2012, the municipality opened Pueblo Museo, a unique museum of contemporary art in the old olive mill. Last year, the LAB Genalguacil for Rural Innovation was inaugurated in the former bank building.
Today, the Genalguacil Pueblo Museo collaborates regularly with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Federacion Andaluza De Municipios Y Provincias and has become the first non-academic member of the Society for Artistic Research. As a Real World Laboratory it participates in the Horizon Europe funded research and innovation action PACESETTERS.
Rather than looking back, the challenge of these days is to connect and share Genalguacil's experience and expertise with other rural regions in Andalusia, Spain, Europe and the world.
Kudos to Miguel Ángel Herrera Gutiérrez, Joe Lockwood FRSA, Marta Calvente Álvarez Benjamin Ramirez, Arturo Comas, Juanfran Rueda, Ana Claudia da Silva Ramos, Vere Álvarez Navas and so many more people who contribute to this success story!