Prototipoak Bilbao, the Azkuna Zentroa International Biennial of New Artistic Forms, is the meeting place for creators who, from diverse perspectives and backgrounds, propose alternative ways to experience contemporary culture, see and live art through all the senses, and foster connections, knowledge, memories, and shared experiences.
Although Prototipoak Bilbao is featured in the last week of May, it starts months earlier. Some projects come about even before the previous Festival and during this time they grow, mutate and adapt to the Azkuna Zentroa and city’s context. Likewise, this biennial is the starting point of processes that will continue active during the following months.
Artists invite the audience to adopt a sensitive relationship with the world and nature via empathy, amazement, curiosity, estrangement, uneasiness, desire, and the sensory experience, through their proposals, the majority of which are site-specific. All these works transcend, expand and dilute the boundaries of artistic disciplines through performative actions, theatre, photography or visual arts.
Description:
Prototipoak is a two-year event. It starts when the artists are invited to begin a creative process that builds relationships, knowledge, memories, and experiences in the present that carry on into the future. During this time, the Center's team participates in the development of the artists’ ideas and in the changing lives of their projects, so that the “Prototype” becomes a common exploration from creation to management, production and communication. The event takes place at the end of May in the form of a celebration, when the results of all these processes come together and are shared with the communities of audiences.
