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Maite and Jule, looking at each other. Photo: Miren Gabilondo.
On 14 March, the book that the author Jule Gabilondo Maite wrote in Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Labourd) between 1937 and 1938 was presented in the cultural centre in the Torrebillela tower house (Mungia).
Jule Gabilondo Arruza-Zabala was born in Mungia on 29 January 1902. Her father, Juan Gabilondo Azurmendi, a doctor, was from Zegama (Gipuzkoa) and her mother, Leonor Arruza-Zabala Etxaburu, from Gueñes (Bizkaia). Her maternal grandfather, Raimundo Arruza-Zabala, was born in Mungia, but married in the town of Gueñes and returned to his birthplace with his family several years later. (more…)
Stick dance at Herrín de Campos. Source: Labrit Ondarea.
When we think of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) – and, above all, when we try to explain exactly what it means – we tend to resort to its more spectacular or iconic expressions: festivities, commemorative and traditional representations, music, bertsolarismo [improvised poetry in Basque], dance, sport, crafts…
We are now adding the gender value to the intangible variable associated to that cultural heritage (even though it can and is usually based on tangible elements).
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Painting by José Arrue. Photo: Juantxo Egaña.
There are times when the smallest detail has much to tell. That is the case of a frieze that José Arrue painted for Bilbao Yacht Club in 1919, which was on the first floor of the Arriaga Theatre at that time. It is now owned by Iberdrola and is kept, along with other works of art, in its iconic Tower.
Well, one of the five fragments of the frieze shows a young girl preparing a lemonade frappe – a typical alcoholic beverage in Basque festivities of the past – to be served to visiting dignitaries. The young girl is depicted with her shirt sleeves rolled up and that is what is remarkable in this particular case.
Gezaltza Añana (Araba), 1943. Photo credit: Enrique Guinea. Source: Municipal Archive of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
We have recently attended tributes to the women who used the washhouse for one of their daily chores of yesteryear. Initiatives such as the ones at Zalduendo and Argomaniz remind us of the hard living conditions just a few decades ago. However, as washhouses were predominated by women (the presence of men there was merely anecdotal), the initiatives also help to bring to the fore tasks that were triply invisible: as they were to do with providing care (in other words, the home), were carried out by women and as they persisted for longer in the rural than the urban world.
Bilbo-Abando
Colon de Larreategi 14, 2. esk.48001 Bilbo (Bizkaia)
Tel.: +34 94 443 76 84
labayru@labayru.eus
Derio
Larrauri 1A, 5.a48160 Derio (Bizkaia)
Tel.: +34 94 406 01 71
idazkaritza@labayru.eus
Bilbo-Bolueta
Metroalde eraikinaBilbo-Galdakao errep. 6A
48004 Bilbo (Bizkaia)
Tel.: +34 94 607 72 10
labayru@labayru.eus
