Territorios Productivos wrap-up: Connecting Local Knowledge, Culture and New Ways of Making
What happens when culture meets local knowledge, production and new technologies?
From 29 to 31 October, Fab Lab Barcelona, at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), hosted the closing exhibition and public programme of Territorios Productivos, a project exploring how culture, traditional knowledge and emerging technologies can come together to rethink local production.
Bringing together initiatives, people and communities from six territories across Spain — Catalonia, Galicia, Castilla y León, Madrid, Valencia and Extremadura — the project set out to explore new ways of connecting cultural heritage, local resources and contemporary forms of making.
Through a series of artistic residencies hosted in each territory, artists and makers worked alongside local organisations and communities to investigate how traditional crafts, collective memory, local materials and cultural practices can become starting points for new ideas and processes. From textile experimentation and the recovery of artisanal knowledge to digital fabrication and the reinterpretation of local festivities and cultural traditions, each residency offered a different perspective on the relationship between making, place and community.
Six territories, one shared network
One of the project’s greatest strengths has been the network of spaces, organisations and people that made these experiences possible. By opening their doors, sharing their expertise and supporting the artistic processes, they helped create connections between local initiatives and a wider ecosystem of cultural and productive practices.
The project brought together:
- Catalonia: Back to Eco, Biblioteca Camp de l’Arpa, Solidança and the Ensemble Network.
- Valencia: Makea Tu Vida and EPPPS.
- Galicia: Espacio Vilaseco, Os Casares, Buj Studio, Maker Faire Galicia and Recuncho Maker.
- Madrid: Madrid Rural Lab.
- Extremadura: Smart Open Lab, Iron Skulls and Asociación Mudarte.
- Castilla y León: Fab Lab León.
Together, these organisations demonstrated the value of local spaces as places for experimentation, knowledge exchange and collective innovation, where traditional practices and new technologies can meet and evolve.
Celebrating the artists and their processes
The closing exhibition brought together the outcomes, prototypes, experiments and research developed throughout the residencies. More than showcasing finished objects, it offered an opportunity to share the processes behind them: the questions, discoveries, collaborations and unexpected connections that emerged along the way.
A big thank you to all the artists and residents who contributed their ideas, research and creative energy:
Miguel Roldán, Carlos Silvestre Baquero, Carolina Micó Navarro, Teresa Cobo Fernández, Ricardo Juárez, Mara Crespo, Esther San Vicente, Ce Quimera, Sara Gaviria Escobar, Heloísa Casaño Pedroso, Sofía Yáñez Perteagudo, Aldara Vázquez Estévez, Luz Santos Rodero, María Suárez García, Pablo Rodríguez Valbuena, Ana Isabel Lera Maraña, Carlota Berzal, Adolf Murillo Ribes, Rafel Arnal, Vicente Castro, Adrián Domínguez Domínguez and Pablo Rubio Martín.
Two conversations about the future of local production
Alongside the exhibition, two roundtable discussions brought together practitioners, researchers and cultural agents to reflect on the project’s broader learnings and the challenges and opportunities of building more connected, locally rooted production ecosystems.
Roundtable 1 · Learning from the Territory: Memory, Knowledge and New Ways of Making
Nuria Robles, Moisés Gordo, Esther San Vicente and Alberto Flores shared perspectives on how local knowledge, collective memory and traditional practices can inform contemporary learning and creative processes. The conversation was moderated and facilitated by Doris Boira.
Roundtable 2 · Making Territory: Spaces, Communities and Production Networks
Penny Papachristodoulou, Antonio Gordillo, David Fernández and Ce Quimera explored the role of local spaces, community networks and collaborative infrastructures in strengthening territorial production. Carmen Tanaka moderated the discussion, connecting experiences and perspectives from different contexts.
Both conversations highlighted an important idea running throughout the project: local production is not simply about making things closer to home. It is also about recognising existing knowledge, creating opportunities for exchange, strengthening relationships and developing new forms of collaboration between people, organisations and territories.
Building connections that go beyond the project
Over these three days, Territorios Productivos became a meeting point for artists, makers, educators, cultural organisations, local communities and anyone interested in exploring new relationships between culture, technology and production.
The project leaves us with new connections, shared experiences and, above all, the reminder that innovation does not always start with something entirely new. Sometimes, it begins by looking more closely at what already exists: the skills, materials, stories and knowledge embedded in a place.
By bringing these resources into dialogue with contemporary tools and collaborative approaches, we can imagine more diverse, sustainable and locally connected ways of making.
Thank you to all the workshop facilitators, participants, collaborators and visitors who joined us throughout these days and helped make this closing event a space for sharing, learning and celebrating.
Territorios Productivos is a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture through its Grants for cultural projects with special social impact.
