Occupying a once-abandoned church in a verdant valley a short drive from Bilbao, creative director, photographer and skateboarder Tas Careaga has envisioned a personal environment through his own creative parameters. A former mining region set deep in the Basque country, Las Encartaciones was left largely deserted as its industry slowly dissolved. When the community it served ceased to exist, Cargeaga acquired the church in the town of Sopuerta, its historic stone walls becoming the canvas for a curatorial vision shaped by anachronistic elements.

In the first film from new series Great Escapes, director Justin Tyler Close captures Careaga within this unique creative landscape, exploring the DIY approach that has enabled him to establish a powerful synergy between old and new, breathtaking nature and the built environment. Resurrecting the building by repairing a collapsed roof and incorporating contemporary features into its structural reinforcement, the 16th century church found new life, caught between history and the present.

Defining his space through the people he chooses to share it with, Iglesia Tas Careaga has evolved into a creative playground that possesses a core part of himself. In its design, and the objects it contains, these cavernous halls and the home’s interaction with the beauty surrounding it present a direct reflection of Careaga’s craft and inspirations, journeying through the various fields that center him in life and in work.