Azkuna Zentroa: the resignation of Fernando Pérez

After almost seven years at the helm, Fernando Pérez is stepping down as head of Azkuna Zentroa, one of Bilbao's most important cultural centres. His departure, while unexpected, appears to be the result of growing tension between the director and the city council. The underlying reason appears to be a deep disagreement about the future direction of the centre.

Fernando Pérez (Sestao, 1967), returned to Bilbao in 2018 to direct the Alhóndiga (now Azkuna Zentroa), a project he knew well from his first steps as head of cultural programming. In recent years, he has transformed this space into a reference for contemporary culture, opting for an alternative, less conventional model and with a special focus on emerging creation.

However, the last few months have been marked by internal friction, mainly with the City Council and its desire to introduce a space promoted by the La Caixa Foundation into the center. This foundation's project, which seeks to establish a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) room, seemed to contradict Pérez's cultural objectives. While the city council welcomed this collaboration, Pérez considered that the implementation of this project in one of the most creative areas of the center, Lantegi, jeopardized the identity of Azkuna Zentroa itself as a space for critical culture and support for artists.

Azkuna Zentroa- Centre de Societat i Cultura Contemporània de Bilbao.

The issue, which at first glance might seem like a simple dispute over the use of space, reveals a deeper conflict over the role that a public cultural center should play. “La Caixa”, with its powerful resources, does not quite understand how it cannot or does not want to allow itself to generate this project in its own space, like the caixaforum model that it already has established throughout the peninsula. This confrontation between the visions of culture as a public good and to what extent private resources should be incorporated into public institutions has been the main trigger for Pérez's resignation.

The debate about the management model of Azkuna Zentroa has accompanied the center since its beginnings, when its hybrid nature, which combines culture, leisure and even sport, began to generate doubts about the coherence of its line of work. Fernando Pérez's mandate has served to consolidate Azkuna Zentroa as an international reference space, with this hybrid public-private commitment. However, his proposals have not always been well received by all sectors, and his focus on contemporary creation and minority audiences has encountered resistance in the political sphere. Despite this, he has managed to endow the center with its own philosophy, with a cultural project that is committed to the diversity of formats.

His departure leaves many questions about the future of the center and the management model that will be applied to it and once again puts on the table the questions between the public vision of culture as a common good and the collaboration or not of public cultural institutions with private agents.

'Lo adherente y el fuego', programa de música experimental i art sonor a Lantegi.