The project is based on biscuits from the industrial society in search of current biscuits. To achieve this objective, the most modern technological means have been used: Internet, video and a book; and also a traveling exhibition aimed at those who do not have the Internet.

Specifically, last April a simple commemorative and festive event was held in the Península del Ribera de Deusto (Bilbao), in the former Artiach biscuit factory. The 100th anniversary of the factory was celebrated and, above all, they recalled the working women and their importance in the economic and social development of Bilbao in the 20th century. However, the most important thing about this event was the presentation of a cultural project, a project that goes far beyond the fact that those Artiach’s 20th century biscuits remain in our memory: The biscuits. A living memory. The initiative has been created by the group called Pripublikarren, at the request of the Department of Urbanism and Environment of the City Council of Bilbao and the Department of Women and Development Cooperation, and the majority of its members are women from very different areas.

The cultural project

In order to ensure that women are treated fairly in the world of work, this cultural project aims to extract and recover from the oblivion the work, the demands and the struggle carried out by many women, who unwittingly became a representative example of a historical moment – industrial society. The project is also an excuse to discuss women’s work today. According to the promoters, it is a project to remember and find those women who built the history of the city of Bilbao through personal stories, which have become a symbol of industrial development and, to be precise, of the development of the riverbank of Deusto. Women also dominated the industries related to the activities of weeds, cod factories, jute factories, hemp braiding, sailing sewing and other auxiliary industries related to the shipbuilding industry. According to the people in charge, this project wants to take into account the work done by all these women, taking the biscuits as a symbol.

This is an ambitious project, open to the whole society, which basically has three very specific applications: a book, a website and a documentary video.

Book, Internet and itinerant exhibition

The Galleteras de Deusto, presented last April, is already on the street. Women and Work at the Bilbao Industrial. It was written by Marta Zabala and Maite Ibáñez, who collected the industrial activity of these women through images and testimonies: their profession, their relationship with machines, strenuous working hours, salaries, and their relationship with employers and managers.

The social environment of the biscuits has not been forgotten, as well as the existence of houses, places of leisure and social relations among others.

We can also find the documentary video www.pripublikarrak.net/blog made by the Pripublikarra group on the website. It is 18 minutes long and the composer and violinist Aranzazu Calleja has put the music to it. The video, through interviews with former and current biscuits, includes testimonies about women’s work and the labor chain. And to help with all this, old photographs that show the most important moments of the evolution of the biscuit company are exposed.

There is also a website (www.galleteras.net) on the Internet that explains this project in full and in a participatory manner in Basque and Spanish. It can be said that it is a living archive that brings together workers from the industrial era – taking the biscuits as symbols – and workers from the post-industrial era. It is a living page that provides a path of participation and mutual enrichment.

There are still many people who do not have access to the Internet. But this has also been taken into account by those responsible for the project, who plan to install a traveling exhibition that will tour the cultural centers of Bilbao to make the project known to the general public. There will be a documentary, a book and some photos.

Knowing the Past Activating Today

It is not the intention of those responsible for this interesting project to make a simple collection of photographs that show the past of working women – in this case the biscuits of Deusto, the cigarette makers of San Sebastián, the cotton makers of Andoain (Gipuzkoa) or the loaders and circuses of the Bilbao estuary. Their goal is to know the past to activate the present day. Thus, they offer different formulas on the web and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Internet to stimulate a constant debate on the subject.

For example, a series of questions have been put on the Internet to allow an open debate about women and work in the post-industrial and industrial era. Here are the questions: “How do you balance work and work? What would today’s cookies be like? Does temporality only appear in the field of work or does it extend to the model of day or life? What is the importance of women’s work in the city of Bilbao? Is the place of residence of working women also a place of work? The workshop has been a place of work and protest so far, but given the current temporality, how to solve this lack of meeting places? What are the main areas of work for women today? What is the current opportunity to file complaints through both the association and the union? “What is the status of women today?” On the

other hand, to observe the differences between the two periods, the website of this cultural project presents the answers to two questions given by some women or groups who work on gender issues or have experience in this subject. These are the questions: What is the current employment situation of women? And, compared to the industrial age and the service society, how has the employment situation of women changed? As you can see on the website of the biscuits, they have all answered these two questions: Authors and researchers Remedios Zafra; philosophers and writers Maite Larrauri; disturbing networks, cultural producers and experts in new techniques Marta Pérez; and Medes, a feminist group of young women entrepreneurs who collaborate with the group Plazandreok.

Loaders, cyclists, cigars and cotton makers

The initiative has not been limited to the Deusto biscuits, but also includes the cases of other women who once fought for the improvement of working conditions. By clicking on the links on the Biscuits website, you can get to know the reality of the Bilbao estuary’s loaders and loggers or the Guipuzcoan cotton and cigarette makers. You can also see documents and videos that cover some aspects of this reality in the workplace and in society.

Dockers and forklifts were key to the port of Bilbao’s work performance. They were made by women, because if they had to be made by men or florists, they would be more expensive for the consignment houses. There were three types of shippers in 1890: those in charge of carrying money from commercial transactions, those carrying cod from the pier to the warehouses and those carrying sand and ore. This last type was the most underrated within the guild, and the workers who worked on what they called “venaqueras”. They loaded the mineral and sand from the dock barge. However, the work of the circuses was worse. They made groups of about four women and put the barges in line and dragged them through the baths they carried in their bodies tied with straps. Since the large ships could not pass through Olaba, it was necessary to transport the goods on barges to the nearest Arenal docks. In 1905 this type of work was still carried out in the port of Bilbao.

The cigarette makers were women who had been working in Tabakalera in San Sebastián since almost their childhood – today they have turned the factory into a cultural centre. Seven hundred women worked in Tabakalera, and in a video you can see the conditions in which they worked. On the same website you can also find references to the Andoain cotton growers (1857-1965). In fact, 55 of the 330 employees who worked at the Andoain cotton factory were honored this year in San Sebastián.