I started the program in 2020 and in a way, I think it was a consequence of the pandemic and thinking about the importance of community and being connected, and in 2021 I organised the second edition with
Getxophoto festival. The program is mainly online but it includes some in-person meetings and workshops. The course is structured by 3 kinds of encounters: artist talk, workshop and masterclass. The artist talk is an artist sharing their process, projects and methodologies when working. The workshops are longer so they allow the artists to propose some exercises and dynamics to do with the class and the masterclasses are focused on learning more about technical and practical things, such as building a portfolio, editing, legal and tax information, taught by specialists.
A big part of being an artist or photographer is the community that you build, having people that will inspire you and that you can share work with and help each other. When I started studying Fine Art in the University of the Basque Country, I sensed that there was not as much community for artists working mainly with the photographic medium in Bilbao as you could find in, say, Madrid or Barcelona.
Caleidoscopio is a place for the exchange of ideas and building a community through this common passion for the photographic medium. It’s a very special project for me and I hope I can continue doing it and learning from it.