In just a decade, Carabanchel has gone from being the prison district to being the neighborhood of artists. A radical change (similar to what has been experienced in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat) in which real estate developments use as a claim. But above all, it has been a powerful magnet for agents in the artistic sector to create an ecosystem in which the last to arrive, in the Urgell area, are galleries like Veta, a huge triple space of eclectic tendencies in three old industrial warehouses , or internationally famous artists like the Cuban Carlos Garaicoa, whose open studio, full of his work, impresses more than many galleries and museums.
The old industrial spaces for graphic arts and textiles in Carabanchel, especially in the Porto area, where the ISO company was located, which manufactured the isocar –a three-wheeled vehicle popular in the 1960s, an icon in the film Plácido–, have given rise to today to a universe of creation that brings together not a few great names in contemporary art in generous open-plan architectures with high ceilings and industrial elevators like American movies that they share in a group, often like a big family.
The artist Julio Sarramián (Logroño, 1981), who arrived in the area in 2013 when there were hardly any studios installed, vividly evokes the scenes that take place in the neighborhood. “It is a disorganized order, there are activities in each study and also sometimes we coordinate. A lot of studios share an interior patio and some days there are three or four cross conversations from one window to another. ‘Today we have paella, do you want to stop by? Come on.'”
“What I have most appreciated from the 2008 crisis, which led us to get together and leave individual studies, is this familiarity, feeling more united, stronger, that creating is not something solitary, that unity is strength. Everyone is happy to be here and meet people. We have changed the way we produce and interact, sharing a roof generates ways of working together”, adds Sarramián.
An ecosystem and pole of attraction for collectors: the day of the photo session in the enormous warehouse that houses the Mala Fama and Nave Oporto studios, the collector Ella Fontanals-Cisneros appears, and for the Arco fair El Carajillo is being prepared, a tour by the district studios, which for the visitor means visiting a lively and colorful museum with a strong smell of paint and works fresh from the oven that give the sensation of being at the heart of creation.
On the other hand, Sarramián recalls the emptiness they found when they arrived in the neighborhood, “there was no demand, in our building, which had become a restaurant, there were four companies left”. Carlos Aires (Ronda, 1974), the soul of the Mala Fama studio and an artist with global projection, moved to the district in 2016 from Puerta del Ángel, exchanging “a cave” for a brighter world. Many others would come, attracted by the spaces and the prices.
“It's amazing, I wasn't aware then of what could happen to the neighborhood. I've started to do it recently. A real community has been generated, which is very difficult to explain. If a collector comes to see my workshop, I take others, here the collective acquires a real dimension”, says Aires. And he mentions the magic words that all the interviewees end up quoting: "What really connected us to the artists of the neighborhood was the Artbanchel festival."
"In Artbanchel we managed to move 150 cultural agents," recalls María Tolmos, who was one of its coordinators and is also one of the Nave Porto, a space that brings together 19 artists such as Nicolás Combarro, Beatriz Ruibal, Ana Nance or Miki Leal.
“The first edition in 2017 was very important, there was no claim, just a desire for community, to know who was here. It was crazy, a before and after, ”she says. And he points out that since then they have always sought "neighborhood ties, you should always listen to your environment", which is why they carry out contagious artistic projects with the neighbors and schoolchildren in the area.
The ArtBanchel moment, he remembers, generated community and unity in the face of speculation that turned some of the initial studios into lofts, and today the administrations consult them about their projects. But also, he admits, there is "some pressure from private interests, with rent increases" in a neighborhood, he remarks, "with an immense amount of assets."
Some industrial buildings have fallen under the pickaxe to build a gigantic Mercadona, now a huge hole in front of Casabanchel, a space that is part of the ecosystem. Marko Zednik is one of the people in charge of this private house that is in an old warehouse and is at the same time and without separation an exhibition hall, a concert hall and an artists' residence, he says that they have already decided to leave when the current rent ends and they comply a decade: the payment will double.
“Madrid had a unique opportunity to take advantage of an organic and non-institutionalized movement in 2016. We proposed a pilot urban program to protect the warehouses that were still standing. Quite a few have fallen. With some protection, it would have been possible to create a center with significant internationalization ”, she underlines.
And yet, the boil is palpable. Sabrina Amrani, the first gallery owner to open a huge space in the district in 2019, in the Urgell area, and who, like all those interviewed, rejects the idea of comparing Madrid with Soho, points out that "there are more artists joining, energy, they have opened more galleries, and that corresponds to a moment of change in the panorama of Madrid that is not only linked to art”.
He believes that an art center would be the icing on the cake for the district, but he recalls that they now have "an open conversation to reflect on Carabanchel, to write its never-written history to think about how we all want to write its future, not from an artistic perspective, but from a human one." as neighbors."
