In order to carry out the planned activities starting next autumn, we need to set up our space located in the Hortaleza neighbourhood in Madrid. The aim of the modification is to make the premises better suited to serve as our collective’s headquarters, as a workspace and as an artist residence.

-Who are we?

We are a non-profit cultural association dedicated to increase the community access to visual arts, architecture and design. We strive to be a link between people and communities from Northern and Southern Europe.

The idea for the association rose from the passion and fascination that Gilfer (head of the association) experienced during his time in Finland. He then shared his stories of the Finnish people and their respect for culture, nature and the individual with us and in doing so, shared his passion and inspired us as well. In other words, THE HUG was born out of affection.

The association was founded about three years ago and since then we have carried out, among others activities, a pilot experiment of our programme LINKKIA. In this programme we collaborated with different Finnish cultural agents who gave us feedback on the project. We are now using their observations to improve LINKKIA by analysing what was interesting, useful and fruitful for the participants. Alongside developing LINKKIA we have been working on making our association visible and audible in the Hortaleza district and started to build our associative network there.

Our first experiment in the professional field was three years ago with Mustarinda, a multidisciplinary artist collective from Finland. Recently, we have ventured into the academic field as well: Johanna Alanko, a Fine Arts student from Finland, has been collaborating with us during spring 2017. This autumn we will have another Finnish guest when Toni Ledentsa, a young art curator, comes to Madrid. He will help us activate and create cultural cooperation between our network’s three main localities, Hortaleza, Madrid and Finland.

- Who is this campaign aimed at?

At private persons, cultural agents, companies, associations, collectives, artists and/or creators from Finland and Spain that:

1. Have a particular interest for cultural interaction and artist residencies in Finland and/or Spain.

2. Live and/or work in Madrid in order to enhance the cultural activities in their hometown.

3. Are living in the Hortaleza district and wish to improve the cultural life in their community and to strengthen the communal spirit and network.

- What will we do with your contribution?

• Change the municipal license so that we may use our premises as a cultural space

• Buy basic furniture for the space

• Remodel the space to make it suitable for both working and living

-Related links

-Web

-Twitter

-Facebook

-Interview at the “Radio Enlace” station

-Interview in the Hortaleza district’s own newspaper

Thank you very much for supporting this space – a space for everyone!