The NABO touring photo exhibit was inaugurated this last weekend (May 13, 2006) at the annual Basque picnic of the Ventury County "Itxas alde" Basque Club (photo above is the President Jose Urrutia). The hope is to get this to as many Basque clubs as possible.  The exhibition is of Mikel Arrazola's photographs of the Basque country (made available to NABO by the Basque Government).

To keep the cost of the exhibit down, and to facilitate its movement from festival to festival, we constructed our own easels; here the Y-boys (Aleks & Kaiet) are at work painting the easels.  The whole exhibit was made to fit into a van or suv; it could possibly be shipped as well but the cost will probably be a couple hundred dollars.

While exhibiting the photographs, we are also utilizing this as a means of following through on our mission of recreation + education = perpetuation.  These impressive photos of people and places in the Basque Country are not only  enjoyable to view, but with included captions they also serve as a means of informing  the viewer about various aspects of Basque culture (see the samples below). 

There are seven easels, with two frames on each one (front & back) that together exhibit three dozen of Mikel Arrazola's photographs (given to NABO by the Basque Government). 

As seen above, you can see the space required for the exhibition and yes--this was in a park.  The key was to make it something we could set up in a variety of venues.  Each plastic poster frame (yes we give up some things with these but we gain more for the portability & durability) contains two or more photographs; all told about three dozen photographs are included.  An example of this is:
 

Sample:

LEGEBILTZARRA. For most of their existence, Basques have been a nation without a state.  For a time during the medieval period there was the Kingdom of Nafarroa (Navarre) that embraced all seven historic territories, but self-determination was limited under a Basque monarch and soon this kingdom was split by the emerging national powers of Spain and France.  Then in the 1930s in the hegoalde (south side) of Euskal Herria there was another successful endeavor by three of the territories (Araba, Bizkaia & Gipuzkoa) to form their own government, but alas Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War ended this brief foray.  With Franco's death in the 1970s, Spain embarked on another experiment in democracy.  Those same three territories that joined together a generation before re-launched their effort of autonomy and today call themselves Euskadi.  While the optimum relationship between the autonomous region of Euskadi and the Spanish federal government in Madrid continues to be negotiated, Euskadi has forged ahead.  This photograph of the Basque Parliament in the capital of Vitoria-Gastiez is where democratically elected representatives meet regularly to work on legislation for the autonomous region of Euskadi.

TRANSPORT. The whole exhibit was constructed to be transported in a van or suv; it could be shipped to your club but it will probably cost over $200.  It takes about 15 minutes for two people to set it up; no one need necessarily guard them but you probably want to put them up in a well traveled area. The whole exhibit consists of seven easels, each with two frames (front & back).  For transport, the easels consist of 14 pairs of 60" 1X3 boards and 28 pieces of 1X3 that are 26" long; meanwhile you have fourteen frames that measure 27X41 inches that fit in two boxes that stack about five inches deep.

Below is the initial phase of this touring exhibit, with hopefully more NABO Basque clubs/organizations to follow; to have this at your club's event please email info@basques.us and we'll get to work on making it happen. 

We are now preparing a second round for touring these photos.  Send in your requests to info@basques.us

To get an idea of what the exhibit consists of, here are seven of the fourteen panels; click on the images to enlarge.