Art, history and recognition

Women who wove history is an exhibition that rescues and highlights the role of women in the workplace during the 19th and 20th centuries in the history of Bilbao and Bizkaia through two different perspectives and two different artistic disciplines: painting and photography.

The artistic representation of the hardest and often least recognized and valued jobs of the time runs throughout the exhibition, where figuration—as a visual explanation of the trades—coexists with abstraction—which reflects the most intimate and profound side of these women.

The 31 works on display, 13 doubles by Esperanza Yunta and 19 by Tere Ormazabal, complement each other and engage in dialogue, offering the public a pluralistic view of the working women of the time, including farm workers, sardine sellers, rope makers, porters, coal miners, seamstresses, cigarette makers, factory workers, prostitutes, laundresses, and ironers, represented in an artistic and personal way. Many of the trades are closely linked to the Bilbao estuary and its economic and social life, but the scope is broader and also includes others that are not, as well as the refugee status of some women.

The exhibition is conceived as a single project with two artistic souls: Tere Ormazabal approaches the trades through contemporary artistic photography, while Esperanza Yunta uses mixed techniques—painting, collage, and elements found in the estuary, such as iron and wood—to evoke the memory of these women.

The exhibition incorporates an audiovisual presentation that intertwines historical images from the Municipal Archives of Bilbao, Bermeo, Muskiz, Lekeitio, Galdakao, and Plentzia, as well as from the Euskal Museoa and the Basque Country Mining Museum, with works by the participating artists. The careful selection of documents, visually integrated with the pieces in the exhibition, provides a historical context and an emotional narrative that enrich and deepen the exhibition’s discourse.

Esperanza Yunta

Esperanza Yunta is a multidisciplinary artist whose work stems from prior research and the creation of sketches and artist’s books. Her creative process combines different techniques and materials, adapting them to the expressive needs of each project, generating pieces with a strong expressive and poetic charge.

Among the techniques she uses are painting, mixed media, and collage, incorporating wood, iron, fine Japanese or recycled paper, intaglio engraving, mokulito, woodcut, and assemblage.

With a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, specializing in painting and engraving, she obtained an Erasmus scholarship and has received various awards in painting and engraving, both in group and solo exhibitions. She has carried out various projects for Ingeteam and is currently immersed in a research project on legends of Navarre and Bilbao and its estuary.

Tere Ormazabal

With a degree in Geography and History from the University of the Basque Country, Tere Ormazabal (Igorre, 1967) was self-taught in her early days in photography, complementing her training with various courses throughout her professional career.

She has exhibited on numerous occasions, both individually and collectively, and has contributed to magazine publications and photography projects for various authors and institutions. She currently works as a photojournalist at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), combining this work with her artistic production.

The themes of her work are mainly divided into two lines: still lifes, through which she seeks to convey serenity and balance; and portraiture, explored from a surrealist approach.