Why Sistema Eragilea?
Publications are formal challenges that we artists gladly accept. They ease the workload of exhibitions and send studio practice to a new level. Along the length of our publications, we complement our efforts with the views of others. When we commission written contributions and we follow up the process, when we translate our texts or those of others and add them to publications, we include the role of editors into our plastic practices. When we take care of materials, when we fold them, cut them, when we challenge the traditional ways of printing or we further enhance the existing ones, we open new fields of experimentation.
An important percentage of artist publications in the Basque context are produced with public funding. It is remarkable that the funds assigned for this purpose are increasingly specific and the budgets growing. Very often, however, the distribution and circulation of the publication is pushed to the sidelines. The same happens with publications financed through other sources. Even though editorial work has become an important aspect of the artistic practice, there is no context or project focused on collecting, analyzing and making artist publications available. We find only anecdotal evidence of this in bookstores or libraries; most of the time, it does not, in scale or complexity, amount to much.
The goal of Sistema Eragilea is to act against this situation and to provide a tool that strengthens the distribution and exchange of publications. Sistema Eragilea wants to bring together in a catalog the artist publications produced in the Basque context, wants to build a database that serves curators, historians, students, readers, activists, etc., as well as, simultaneously, allow artists to enhance their own publishing methodologies.
