Imanol Zubiauz, PhD in Fine Arts from the UPV-EHU and lecturer at the same university, presents Pidgin, an artistic project linked to anthropological research, identity and collective memory, which deals with the context that unites the Basque and Icelandic people during the whaling period.

Through his research and artistic production, Zubiauz brings us closer to the Basque-Icelandic pidgin, a proto-language that arose between the union of the two languages through trade. Pidgin refers precisely to this; to the creation of an auxiliary language between two or more social groups with different languages. Three 17th century manuscripts containing pidgin glossaries, translations and complete sentences are the result of this.

The project is based on the figure of a fictitious character located, temporally and geographically, on a whaling ship of the time. Thus, the experiences and memories of this whaler are exhibited through different installations, photographic archives and various materials that introduce the public to relive the voyages of Basque sailors.

Pidgin is born out of an absence of collective memory and underlines the importance of culture together with its traditions and particularities, at the same time as it draws on an archival basis to create an imaginary between reality and fiction.

The exhibition is sponsored by Laboral Kutxa and will be open at the museum until 3 November 2024.