The Basque Museum and Cultural Center is inviting artists and designers — graphic designers, illustrators, fine artists, or hybrids — to propose a visual identity for their upcoming exhibition, “Euskaldunik hemen bada?”or “Are There Any Basques Here?”.

Submissions due Friday, October 23, 2026.

Information from the BMCC

The Story

It is sometime in the early twentieth century. A ship is steaming into New York Harbor. Among the passengers are Basques — people from a small, ancient nation straddling Spain and France, speaking Euskara, a language unlike any other on earth, with no known relatives anywhere in the world.
As they make their way off Ellis Island and onto the ferry to Manhattan, one of them hears something unexpected: someone cupping their hands, calling out across the dock:
“Euskaldunik hemen bada?”
“Are there any Basques here?”
That was Valentín Aguirre — a Basque hotel owner who sent his employees to search for newly arrived Basque emigrants. They welcomed the newcomers to the U.S. with open arms, helping prep them for success in an unfamiliar land. For those travelers, hearing their mother tongue after weeks at sea must have been an enormous relief.
That moment — the call, the recognition, the welcome — is the heart of this exhibition. Euskaldunik Hemen Bada? is a temporary exhibition about the vibrant Basque community in the United States today, telling a story of more than 500 years of Basque presence in the Americas. It will debut at Ellis Island itself — the very place where those voices first rang out.

What We Need From You

This is not a cookie-cutter brand project. The exhibition is layered: intimate and epic, archival and interactive, deeply serious and genuinely joyful. We want our visitors to leave the exhibit with knowledge on the long history of the Basques in the U.S., understanding of the vibrant community that exists today, and Euskara’s role at the heart of Basque identity, bridging the gaps between Basques past, present, and future.
We need someone who will sit with the story, find its visual truth, and build an identity that can hold all of it.

Learn more about the exhibition and project details by emailing Curator Amaya Herrera at amayah@basquemuseum.eus