Donostia: Kortxoenea, Manifest self-management and resistance

Five years ago the Youth Assembly and different neighbours from Gros decided to occupy an old cork-manufacturing factory. We did it in response to a great need we had in our neighborhood: a self-managed and diverse cultural facility. Five years later Kortxoenea Gaztetxea is a meeting point for different cultural and political groups, music bands and theatre companies.
We can see a clear clash between two ways of understanding culture. In less than 4 months San Sebastian will become the European Capital of Culture, and we think it is a seriours error from the City Council to demolish such a cultural space. We would like to denounce the speculative and elitist policy the City Council is implementig in cultural and social areas. They are conducting house evictions while more than 11.000 flats are still empty. The same week they are opening Tabakalera (a cultural facility costing +50M€), the same year they have brought back the bloody bull-fighting, they are trying to demolish our Gaztetxe to build luxury appartments without offering any solution for us. [Read More]