In June 1983, a young Isabel Herguera, at that time a fourth-year student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bilbao, submitted a registration form together with her colleague Mikel Arce for their video-installation Lavabo so that they could officially take part in the Video Festival, founded a year before this by Guadalupe Echevarria as part of the San Sebastian Film Festival. Along with the standard registration materials (technical specifications, curriculums, biographies) the archive has kept a detailed description, written by the artists themselves, of this pioneering piece of work.

Two months earlier as grant-holders, Herguera and Arce had exhibited Lavabo, that was also called their video-sculpture, at Arteder, the Contemporary Art Fair that had been held since 1981 in Bilbao as a meeting place for artists to present the latest innovations in painting, sculpture, ceramics or photography. Arteder 83 was a key year in several ways. On the one hand, the organisers included the video for the very first time in their catalogue of works of art. On the other hand, the holding of the fair – that at the same time was a market – provided the setting for the official formation of the Euskal Artisten Elkartea [Association of Basque Artists], with the aim of acting as a “pressure group” in the field of art and culture.

As well as Lavabo, which is considered to be the first video-installation to be made in the Basque Country and one of the first in Spain, the team led by Guadalupe Echevarria retrieved another Basque piece shot on video from that vibrant artistic showcase to be included, together with another 38 films, in the International Competition of the Video Festival. This was Bilbao la muerte by Juan Carlos Eguillor, described by its author, in his first incursion into the medium, as an omen for the historic flood that occurred in August in that same year in Bilbao.

Just like Herguera, Arce was also something of a pioneer: a year before they created their joint work, he had taken part as a monitor in some Introduction to Audiovisual Media courses aimed at teachers at Ikastolas, run with the support of the Basque Government, in what can be considered to be the first step in the academic sphere towards the literacy of a new language.