This project was conceived and is being implemented jointly by Do Picho and Baku Barrikupel. Currently, the project is self-funded through contributions from both organizations and artists from both regions who have joined and are participating in its development. We will seek joint funding from various sources for planned future activities.
The focus is on Estella-Navarra and A Ulloa, where Do Picho and Baku Barrikupel are located and where we have the strongest connections with artists, other associations, and the community at large. However, the project includes artists and organizations from other regions of Navarra and Galicia.
The project originated during the 8th Culture and Ruralities Meeting (VIII Encuentro Cultura y Ruralidades) in Estella-Navarra in June 2025 and, after many months of planning and meetings, held its first major four-day event in Lugo and A Ulloa from March 5th to 8th, 2026.
Detailed Project Description
Ralf Jürgens, founder of Do Picho, met Jesús Prieto, artisan and partner, along with his daughter Amaia, of Baku Barrikupel, at an event at Do Picho in March 2025, just after episode 396 of the podcast “The Man Who Falls in Love with the Moon” was recorded at Granxa Maruxa in Ulloa.
During Ralf’s visit to Estella, Navarra, in June 2025, where he attended the 8th Culture and Ruralities Forum, Ralf and Jesús visited other artists and their studios in the region. This led to the idea of exploring some kind of partnership, or at least a series of exchanges, residencies, and events, between artists from Lizarraldea and Navarra in general, and artists from A Ulloa and Galicia in general.
Why collaborate?
In short, a meeting of hearts and minds took place, revealing an affinity, shared values of respect, care, and tenderness, a common interest in the protection of the environment, the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, and the firm conviction that artists and cultural centers can and should be part of a movement to reclaim and revitalize rural spaces and make them desirable, including fighting against that which would destroy them, using artistic expression in all its forms.
After a series of meetings organized by the project implementers, Do Picho and Baku Barrikupel, the first gathering took place from March 5th to 8th. Six artists from various disciplines from Lizarraldea traveled together to Lugo and A Ulloa, where they met with a group of Galician artists, to discuss common interests and potential collaborations.
Artists from Lizarraldea
Maria Araiz
Born in Estella-Lizarra (Navarre), Maria Araiz Gaínza arrived in Madrid in 2005, where she earned a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Complutense University and a diploma as an actress from Réplika Teatro Academia del Actor (2014). She currently combines teaching, law studies, and theater work, aiming to define the roadmap for the company’s upcoming productions through pedagogy, legal research, and stage creation. @ropa_tendida
Maddi Etxeberria
Maddi is a musician from Navarra who began singing solo in 2024. Classically trained (she studied guitar and violin), she has always loved writing and singing and just released a self-produced album in November, called Amaitasuna. Her first work was produced by Yoel Molina from Cantabria and Julen Urzaiz from Pamplona. YouTube
Alatz Lopez
Alatz manages the Cromlech space, is a visual artist and art therapist. At Cromlech, he offers free expression workshops, painting classes and art therapy. On a personal level, he explores the idea of art as a tool for direct communication with oneself through improvisation. For this reason, he also creates performing art accompanied by live music. @alatzlopezlameiro @cromlechtopagunea
Iñaki Rifaterra
Iñaki Rifaterra (Zaragoza, 1978) worked as a lithographer in Arteleku (Donostia-San Sebastián) with Don Herbert from 2010 to 2014 and later at the Deba Art School in Guipúzcoa until 2016. In 2016 and 2017, he worked in Rasmus Urwald’s team of lithographers at the prestigious Edition Copenhagen workshop (Denmark), specializing in original artistic lithography. Since 2020, he has been working in Navarra in a new contemporary lithography studio, “Atelier Estella Lizarra”. @atelier_estella_lizarra @inaki_rifaterra
Marijose Recalde
My artistic journey, which began in painting, has followed a fluid and exciting development that now leads me to work in collaboration with other social agents. I believe that this progression has been an adventure, not forced, but natural. The transition from painting to sculpture occurred naturally because the object aspect was already present from the beginning, and my appreciation for things was innate. @mariposerecalde
Amaia Prieto
Let me introduce myself: I’m Amaia, I’m 27 years old and, although I may not be obvious from the outside, deep down I see that I’m still a work in progress. I recently started calling myself a designer specialized in sustainability, because that’s what my title indicates. But when people ask me who I am, I usually answer: Designer and much more. Why? Because I believe that design never ends. It’s infinite. @amaiaprietx @baku.barrikupel
Ana Lee
I am Ana Lee (A Coruña, 1975), a Renaissance artist and lover of trash, a musical performer and multidisciplinary creator trained as a teacher and photographer. My practice encompasses music, performance, muralism, mosaics and sgraffito, as well as sculpture with cracks and printing with marine plastics, developing an artistic research that connects territory, memory and matter. I work from Galicia as a physical and spiritual space, exploring counterculture, collective action and ancestral roots that nourish my work. @ana_lee_zoupi
Teresa Arrojo
“A creator out of pure existential necessity.” Sculpture is my wildest side. Connected to Mother Earth, to change, to origins… Ceramics is my most spiritual side. The potter’s wheel is like meditation. The miracle of fire and the transformation of matter. Painting. Passion, gesture, concept, forms… in the search for balance, beauty and joy. Installations. Playing with space. Interaction and integration. @32deluz
Carmen Soriano Pereda
She works from the physical realm as a field of transformation, where matter, body and space become experience. Her work encompasses sculpture, painting, performance and installation as ways of exploring origin, identity and relationship with the land. Through technique and direct experience with matter, she explores how forms are constructed, sustained and transformed. @s.o.r.carmen
Zoe Vixion
Zoe Iriarte doesn’t just create shows or images: she inhabits spaces, awakens gazes and transforms the stage into an act of presence. In 1989, she founded her first company, Lohengrín Teatro, a creative space and school of theatrical freedom in Vigo. There, for more than thirty years, acting became a profession and the profession a destination. At the same time, since the 1980s, photography has accompanied her as another way of breathing. In 2023, she created zOe viXión, a synthesis of her four creative impulses: photography, theatre, training and lighting. A project that does not seek focus but reveals shadows; that puts light at the service of those who rarely receive it. @_sr_madre
Catuxa Salom
Catuxa Salom is a Galician-Argentine artist who works at the intersection of indigenous Argentine rhythms, Galician folklore and contemporary electronic production. Her project reinterprets rural identity from a contemporary perspective, connecting tradition and a global sound language. She burst onto the independent scene with her EP Nunha aldea (2022) and in 2024 released her first LP, Caldo, an album that reflects on the care network, community structures and the deromanticization of rural life as a complex and living territory. @catuxasalom
Results of the meeting
During an event at Do Picho, the results of the meeting were shared and discussed with other artists and the community. Looking ahead, artist residencies, joint exhibitions and events, joint funding applications, and, perhaps most importantly, mutual support in our struggles, both individual and shared, will be organized.
Here is Iñaki Rifaterra’s blog post about the meeting.