Manifest

ARTEKALE is the Basque Country Street Arts Association. Since 2004 it has been working for the dignity and the acknowledgement of the Street Arts field.
It includes all the different groups that give life to the sector: companies, promoters, festivals and fairs.

The Basque Country Association agrees with the “Street Arts Manifesto” of the Street Arts French Federation.

We exist because it is necessary
We were born 2500 years ago
People meet us by accident, sometimes unknowingly
We act for all eyes and all ears
We fill all kind of spaces: streets, fields, forests,
Neighbourhood backyards, cities and villages…
They say that we are the street; it is our stage, our ring, our choice
We cultivate the street
Artists, authors, organizers, technicians…

In these days, when the market takes up everything
When the fear is originated to make us whisper and put on blinkers
When distance grows, signs and walls multiply
When they beg to follow without stopping
We claim loud and clear that there are things to see,
To share, to know
Hundreds of celebrations and meetings, millions of artists, millions of viewer
Something that we,
Artists citizens registered in the city struggle to build, day bay day!
We claim the right to subsist on our craft
We believe that art can save the world
But first and foremost
That it has to grow
In a free street…