Working at the Slaughterhouse

When this assignment was announced I felt a little out of my depth as my knowledge about workers in the creative industry felt rather limited. Going in I was happy for any assistance that would be offered and so when I was introduced to Rosana’s friend Beatriz Bartolome I was very excited for a chance to not just learn about the creative industry but specifically how it is working in a cultural centre. 

Beatriz Bartolome works at Matadero’s film centre, Cineteca. Mataero is a cultural centre which was once a slaughterhouse and then was closed for quite some time before it was converted into the Matadero cultural centre in 2006 ("NOSOTROS", n.d.). Similar to what happened with the opening of the Guggenheim transforming Bilbao into a thriving cultural area, Matadero also helped to transform its surrounding area, providing “cultural service to the people who live nearby” but as Beatriz continued to explain to me, this also came with a certain level of gentrification, raising the price of real estate in the area, “smaller businesses have to move away because the rent goes up”. When I asked if Beatriz herself lived in the area, she laughed explaining how expensive the house would be, really showing how much the area has changed. 

Hesmondhalgh and Baker discuss how creative work has many times in the past been discussed in the context of a glorification of creative works and artists. Pierre-Michel Menger was someone who fell into this trend, discussing how creative or artist work comply with the “demands of modern capitalism: ‘extreme flexibility, autonomy, tolerance of inequality, innovative forms of teamwork’” (Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011). They also mention how Andrew Ross claimed in a more critical analysis of creative work that creative workers must become accustomed “to a contingent rather than a fixed, routine of self-application” (Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011). As I spoke with Beatriz, I found that many of these perceptions held some truth. Beatriz works in the centre creating cultural programs which the centre runs for high school students, however, she explained to that it was difficult to define a typical day of work. Much like what she does in the centre, nothing is fixed but rather, things are very dependent on the time of year and what the centre is preparing for at that moment. She needs to be flexible not just for atypical workdays but also atypical year schedules. Interestingly, when I asked her what the most difficult part was of her job she noted the amount of administration that comes with working in centre that is government funded. “For any little thing you want to do you have to write a lot of reports, complete a lot of documents …[taking time away from] more creative stuff or thinking about the programs”. I thought this was a very interesting portrayal of this sort of work. With many of these creative works, it is hard to separate them from what can be considered as “uncreative works”, like administration.

Despite this Beatriz recognised the benefit of working for a government funded institution. Especially during the pandemic, she and the other people she worked with were very lucky in this regard as they did not have to worry about losing their jobs and in general the goals they work towards as an institution are not economic because making profit is not something they need to worry about. 

What I found most interesting that what Beatriz described as one of the best parts of her job which I felt reflected the value that creative work holds in society, to ultimate “enrich our lives and make the world a better place” (Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011). For Beatriz more than remembering particular movies she liked she remembered the interactions which were the most interesting to her. She recounted a story to me of a film that was shown to some high school students. The film was made in collaboration with high school students and she could see how excited they were about seeing themselves on screen “they felt that at last they were watching a movie that reflected their problems, issues, what they were going through”. It is interactions like this that Beatriz remembered most, because it is in those moments where the impact of the movie and the program and what she does could be properly seen. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, the educational program has not been able to start up again, which is a shame as one can see through Beatriz’s experiences that the program holds a lot of value in how it touches and impacts the lives of the students. 

I really enjoyed my talk with Beatriz because it opened up a world to me that I had never considered as a career opportunity. I was really touched by how she enjoyed creating programs which have an impact on the high school participants as well as those who created the field. I hope that one day whichever career path I decided to take, I can have the freedom as she does to produce creative works which impact others just as much. 

Work Cited

BBC Arts - BBC Arts - The Bilbao effect: How 20 years of Gehry's Guggenheim transformed the city. Bbc.co.uk. (2017). Retrieved 14 April 2021, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1HL3drXNNWQVq7tpC6pMRsJ/the-bilbao-effect-how-20-years-of-gehrys-guggenheim-transformed-the-city.

Hesmondhalgh, D., & Baker, S. (2011). Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries. Routledge.

NOSOTROS. Matadero Madrid. Retrieved 14 April 2021, from https://www.mataderomadrid.org/nosotros.