Entrevista con el gestor cultural : La Fabrica Cultural, Córdoba

La Fábrica Cultural is a project with
different areas, with training areas for

all types of dance, music, theater,
and other workshops;

another part has shows with
live music, theater, puppets, movies,

the programming is very diverse
and we also have a restaurant.

But we don't work there.

There are two of us, we both studied
film, we opened in July of 2009.

It started from a get together, as
well as the dream of, or more like

the intention of starting a
cultural center, a cultural center

with workshops and small
shows , we decided to do

all of this in two months.

This place used to be a pharmacy,
it went bankrupt one day and since then

we’ve been renting the space.

Attendees from
all of Córdoba,

are between 18 and 35 years old,

depending on the type of
show that we're having.

What we’re looking for is social diversity
to be a meeting point in our space.

that is what we are looking for.

We are a non-profit organization.
Being just the two of us,

Meetings aren't tedious, they are
lengthy discussions. It’s really good

because we compliment each
other's potential. I'm in charge

the artistic side of things. I coordinate
the shows and day to day activities

that happen. We are open from Wednesday
to Saturday, and for all workshops.

My partner Matías takes care of all
of the parts that I find boring, which

I don't understand, all of the
structural and financial aspects…

We work with a lot of independent
producers, many from Córdoba and at

national level as well. I believe
that it’s really interesting because

novel ideas came from that.
Today we work with around, I don’t know,

10 to 15 producers on a monthly basis
who are developing their own space.

A percentage of ticker sales, or publicity

agreements is divided –
we try and divide the income equally.

We work with, well, with a website
that controls everything

because once the information
is finalized it goes to

the page, from the page it goes to a
a printer that works with us.

It works very well.

There is a girl dedicated
to internet marketing with

social networks like

Facebook, Twitter, and also email
marketing, we have a big data base

with 25,000 people more or less,
that does a lot for us.

And this year we’ve started a magazine
that will be printed in the daily paper

with the monthly programming
schedule, we were printing 5,000

copies, we distributed them all over
town, from the university, to all

of the cultural and social hubs, that
basically work from the center, in

books stores, and later with flyers.

Because there were only a few people it
cost us a lot to coordinate it all.

Yeah, I think you can say so, after
3 years I believe it cost us a lot, it’s

a long process to maintain it, it
takes a lot of effort,

it took us a long time and many hours,
to get where we are, to think about how,

it’s always the most difficult, when
you talk about sustainability, but we

worked, and worked, and searched, and
I believe that now, we found

a middle ground where,
we are satisfied with the

work that we are doing.

At all our artistic events

we always have a bar, that's
like the income, basically

our only income. Income also
comes from our workshops,

this year we will have between
25 and 30 workshops,

we also work with the teachers,
70% goes to the teacher and

30% stays here. The agreement
that we have today

for productions is varied, not really an
agreement, and a lot is in the middle of

the press, designs, but they are
all productions of our shows.

The producer or the artists take

one hundred percent of the
tickets, and we keep

the money from the bar.

Until today we were
not against it at all

but we don’t take external funding,
it is a short term goal, but

we don't want the space to depend on
that, because of, well, nothing,

we know the day that that doesn't exist
we must continue working.

We work with a lot of
projects that are, well,

ideological exchange most of all, we
work with other spaces and organizations,

also with the university, there’s
a program in particular

with an exchange that
interested both of us.

We work with a lot of work groups
for different activities and

we communicate a lot with
other spaces in our city,

or we make productions together
as well, that also lets us know what

is happening on the other side, so
we have a good relationship with the other

spaces, but for now they are informal.

The talent in Córdoba is incredible,
I study film so from that point of view

I was already fascinated by
the production that was in

Córdoba that seemed very interesting, the
knowledge of, from visual artists

music, theater, film, I don't
know the organizations that exist

that work in the neighborhoods, the puppet
show networks, there are a lot of them,

so many shows, so many
artists, in fact we have

a lot of shows from Buenos Aires
and they do very well here.

The legal part, well, all the different
parts of the association cost us a lot,

everything to do with authorization,
but nothing, there’s nothing, when you

know nothing about this side of things,
there’s nothing to do but look into it,

and there are things that they
don't tell you and you have

to just do them, with the schedule too, it
happened on the artistic side at first,

finding a line of work that you don’t know

it’s the hardest, but
there was never a time

when we had to close
because of difficulty.

We spoke to the neighbors a lot,
and since then we still do.

We had meetings with the
building occupants, we went and

told them about the project, it’s not
like talking to just anyone, it’s like

another neighbor.

"Tercer lugar" has the goal of
working with people with disabilities.

They formed this group and
started working twice a week

to create workshops and
a monthly event, called

"La Matiné" which happens on Saturday
evenings, it’s a party, with live bands

it’s really beautiful. Something
that we always talk about,

is that the bar at the
shows, that it’s like

our Bible or at least until
now we always did things

that way, from communication, and
printing, the show is always the

center of attention here.

Culture, identity and work.

Now the idea is to start registering
all of the shows, and installing a

radio here inside the space, ideally
each organization has their space

to do as they please.

We would like to develop
more in the online film area.

Now this year we are working with
a newspaper, named

El Comunal that we got, which
came out in 2013,

and works with social organizations, about
political, cultural and social matters.

We were looking for a new
space that’s social, political,

a space within society where
we’re not, this interests us a lot

going forward as a future objective.

And La Fábrica doesn't belong to any

network, this year I believe we're going
to think about changing that,

working with networks, working with
organizations, doing activities outside of

our space, this is something
that also interests us.

Advice, we let them chat, like, I don’t
know, the space is a way of communicating,

it’s just an experience, I don't know
if it’s something we could teach

I don't know if it’s like that.

It seems like the conversation
always occurs with everyone,

and many things come out of that, this is
something we’ve learned a lot.

Subtitles: Jamaal Taylor.
Proof-reading: Victoria Price.

Coordinated by the initiative PerMondo (Mondo Agit).