The Bilbao walks were performed from the city center to coastal regions, specifically referencing aspects of Basque geography and culture. This post-industrial city has gained notoriety for the globalization term "Bilbao Effect" after Frank Gehry's world famous Guggenheim Museum was constructed there in the late 1990s. D'Agostino's project metaphorically weaves his direct perceptions of Bilbao's old and new landscape and unique "siri-miri" weather together with elements of the region's philosophical thought, most notably that of Miguel Unamuno. Produced in the form of a video/text/web installation, World-Wide-Walks/between earth & sky/BILBAO was commissioned by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) for their new building designed by Pritzker prize-winning Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. The exhibition catalogue, with essays by Kristine Stiles, David Tafler and Gabriel Villota Toyos, is distributed by Printed Matter, New York.
"When I began to think about how to inaugurate the new exhibition space that the UPV/EHU was going to open in Bilbao, Peter d'Agostino's World Wide Walks was the first thing came to mind. His work directly addresses the essence of the concept of the 'glocal,' and could therefore serve, in my opinion, to accurately portray the meaning of that movement which is characteristic of our society and age. The interpretation that Peter made differed slightly from what I had imagine a priori, which was a good thing: thanks to that, Unamuno and Cervantes finally appear together in the video and we can even imagine them together in the Altamira cave, on a day when a fine rain is falling..." Gabriel Villota Toyos, Director, Bizbak Art & Cutural Center, UPV/EHU, Bilbao