UTOPIA126: promoting culture in Barcelona
Quique Camín Díaz, founding partner of UTOPIA126
What does the company specialize in?
The aim of UTOPIA126 is to provide a space for encounters, projects, and above all, ideas. Our intention is to promote initiatives, give them space to grow, and help them take off. We don't have a specific goal as such; we seek to rise to a challenge: to create a starting point for those who wish to create cultural content.
We also rent out our spaces for events and filming.
When was UTOPIA126 founded? By whom?
UTOPIA126 was founded in February 2015 by the two partners, Oscar Valles and Quique Camín. We have worked together since the beginning, although I am now retired.
What do you like most about your job?
The opportunity to discover new projects and help new talented artists to gain a name for themselves.
And what do you like least?
Everything related to public institutions: subsidies, sponsorships, etc.
What do you think your company is particularly good at?
Decision-making and taking risks.
What is your main challenge?
Our purpose is to provide a base for creative people with plenty of initiative and an artistic project that can be created in our building. The factory in which we are located is the heart and soul of our project, although we are conscious that its days are numbered.
When we created Utopia126 we knew that someday we would witness its demise, since the building is due to be demolished in the future. But that is what fascinates us most and gives us strength: our intention is not to be a chain or industrial production machine, but a creative place where we there is great freedom in decision-making.
Where is Utopia126 located?
Poblenou, which is where we found the space best-suited to our ideas. There are also a remarkable number of companies related to culture here.
What do you like most about the neighborhood where you work?
The fact that there are spaces of a size and at a price that would be unthinkable in other areas of Barcelona.
How important is Barcelona for your company?
Our work is focused on promoting cultural initiatives in Barcelona and of Barcelona.
Which city would you compare Barcelona to and what city do you think it should resemble?
I would compare it with Berlin and I think it should try to be like Berlin.
What best practices from other cities would you like Barcelona to adopt?
It would be useful to have the legal tools to be able to carry out ideas of all kinds. Barcelona is a city with very strict regulations that limit the generation of medium-sized projects.
What do you ask of the Barcelona of the future?
I would like to see it recover its creative identity in everything it does.
Photographies: Courtesy Utopia126.
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