Between Coastlines and Clay: Remote, Foreign, and Local Artisans Shaping Galicia’s Creative Economy

Spain
Written By Angela-Jo Touza-Medina

Beautiful beanies from Trisquel Artesanía

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    If you listen closely in Galicia, the soundtrack of “remote work” is changing. Yes, there are laptops in cafés and Slack notifications pinging in coworking spaces — but there’s also the thud of a loom, the spin of a pottery wheel, the scrape of a carving tool on wood.

    In this corner of Atlantic Europe, artisans are quietly rewriting what it means to live and work remotely. Some were born here and left, then came back with new skills and global networks. Others arrived from abroad — designers, makers, artists — who used the freedom of remote work to root themselves in a place that still values slowness, craft, and community.

    Together, they’re doing something powerful: building businesses that are deeply local and unapologetically global. This is the ecosystem that LiveGalicia is hoping to start shedding light on and celebrating via our upcoming Holiday Shopping Guide 2025 — and it’s an ecosystem that Remote Work Europe readers will recognise: flexible, border-crossing, value-driven, and very human.

    The truth is that Galicia never completely surrendered to mass production. Geography helped: peninsulas, rías, mountain valleys, and a culture that has always quietly resisted being told what it should be.

    Today, more than 150 officially recognised craftspeople open their workshops to the public through the “Obradoiros Abertos” network, making it possible for visitors (and locals) to find artisan studios via a dedicated app and map. Recent research on artisanal systems in Galicia presented to the region’s Economic and Social Council frames craft not as nostalgia, but as a living economic system: one that blends tangible products with intangible heritage, from techniques to stories and symbols. Thus, the regional government itself increasingly talks about talent, creativity, and sustainability as pillars of a future-facing economy “open to the world.” 

    All this matters for remote workers and international residents: you are not just plugging into any random region. You are stepping into a place where small-scale making still has social legitimacy and growing institutional backing.

    Remote, Rooted, and Selling Globally

    The stereotype of a “remote worker in Galicia” often centres on a tech professional with a laptop and a sea view. That person exists. But standing right next to them, you’ll find:

    • a textile designer weaving blankets on a handloom in Allariz,

    • a ceramicist shipping sculptural pieces from Viveiro to clients in Berlin,

    • a studio in Vigo experimenting with minimalist ceramics inspired by port cranes and shipyards.  

    These are not side hobbies. They are full businesses — often run by one or two people — built at the intersection of tradition and digital reach.

    In Allariz, RiR & Co is a textile craft workshop that produces handwoven fabrics from natural fibres, creating blankets, cushions, and fashion accessories on traditional looms.  Their D-Leite blankets, for example, are woven with Spanish merino wool and a milk-protein fibre, in limited runs that emphasise sustainability and emotional connection to the piece.  

    The Atlantic explicitly inspires their collections — the colours of the Galician coast, the changing light over the ocean — and they sell through an online store that ships beyond Galicia. This is a pattern you’ll see again and again: a rooted, place-based story and a global customer base. Up the coast in Viveiro, Regal Cerámica has been working in clay since the early 1980s. Today, alongside their physical space and cultural complex “Regal Xunqueira,” they run a full online shop where you can order decorative pieces, tableware, and author-designed ceramics from anywhere. In Santiago de Compostela, BOLES Galicia specializes in functional ceramics for the kitchen: pieces that are both contemporary and deeply tied to Galician culinary culture.  Both businesses reflect a wider trend: small workshops embracing e-commerce, not to escape Galicia, but to make staying here viable.

    Also in Santiago, Trisquel Arutesanía brings Galician and handmade products - from jewelry to traditional objects - directly into online commerce, carefully positioning themselves as a bridge between local artisans and global buyers. For the Galician diaspora and anyone with a soft spot for the region, Galician Shop (online since 2007) provides gifts and products that honor Galician heritage and ship internationally.  These kinds of businesses matter for remote-working foreigners and returnees because they show what is possible:

    • You can live in a small town and still have a global reach,

    • You can centre your work in physical materials and still be part of a digital economy,

    • You can build a business that speaks to both your neighbours and your clients thousands of kilometres away.

    Beyond established brands, Galicia has a growing ecosystem of individual studios and hybrid spaces:

    • Paula Ojea set up Ojea Studio in Vigo, creating ceramics that reinterpret industrial and coastal landscapes in carefully crafted objects.  

    • Artist-led spaces, residencies, and initiatives — from Casa Beatnik’s vineyard-based artist residencies to DoPicho’s non-profit residency in Palas de Rei — bring international artists into dialogue with local culture and landscape.  

    Many of these makers teach workshops, host open studios, or collaborate with local events — which means that for remote workers in Galicia, there is an open invitation to participate, not just consume.

    Ecosystems: Markets, Colivings, and Creative Rural Experiments

    None of this happens in isolation. Around the artisans, you’ll find a growing mesh of markets, networks, and rural experiments that combine remote work with craft and culture.

    Seasonal markets like “Artesanía, sabre e sabor” in Ribadavia combine craft with high-quality local food — from ceramics and jewellery to cheeses, honey, and chocolate — turning historical centres into live showcases for Galician artisanal talent.  

    In Vigo, Mercado Mona gathers more than 30 local artists for a weekend of illustration, jewelry, recycled textiles, digital art, and fashion, giving emerging makers a platform to reach new audiences.   These events are not just “nice to have” — they are micro-infrastructure for creative livelihoods. Rural colivings host remote professionals, artists, and tech workers who live and work together while collaborating with local residents on sustainability and digital literacy projects.  Projects like FIXAR, supported by the Xunta and cultural associations such as Sende, explicitly aim to attract digital nomads and entrepreneurs to rural Galicia, using coliving as a way to seed businesses and help repopulate villages. Then there are grassroots initiatives like Rural Hackers, which reimagine intellectual property as a kind of creative commons — using open-source approaches to support artists and makers in regenerating local economies.  Together, these experiments show that Galicia is not just passively receiving remote workers; it’s actively prototyping new rural futures where craft, culture, and digital work intersect.

    Why This Matters for Remote Workers and International Residents

    If you are working remotely in or with Galicia, artisans are not just a charming backdrop. They are:

    • Evidence that small is viable. These businesses prove that you can build something meaningful here without needing a big city.

    • Hosts and cultural translators. Going to a pottery workshop or a weaving class isn’t just an activity; it’s an informal language lesson, a history class, and an introduction to local networks.

    • Potential collaborators. Many artisans need help with e-commerce, photography, storytelling, or digital strategy — areas where remote workers often have strengths.

    Remote work is often framed as an escape from “normal life.” In Galicia, it can be the opposite: a way back into daily life, into community, into a slower, more sensory way of being that includes touch, taste, and texture.

    Conscious Commerce and the Holiday Season

    Every year, as the holiday season approaches, we’re invited — loudly and aggressively — to consume. Buy more. Faster. Cheaper. And then do it again next year. The artisans of Galicia ask a different question: What if we bought fewer things, but chose them better?

    A handwoven blanket whose fibers were chosen with care.
    A ceramic bowl shaped by someone who can tell you exactly where the clay comes from.
    Handmade jewelry or music that carries the cadence of Galician rain, stone, and sea.

    This is the spirit behind LiveGalicia’s Holiday Shopping Guide 2025:

    • a curated collection of products and services created by foreign and local artisans, returnees, and global-minded Galicians,

    • offerings that reflect the diversity and creativity of people who have chosen to live and build in Galicia,

    • and a commitment to conscious, community-based commerce over anonymous mass consumption.

    The guide will highlight makers like those mentioned above — along with newer, smaller projects that don’t yet have the visibility they deserve — and offer readers across Europe ways to support them directly.

    Explore the Holiday Shopping Guide 2025

    Submissions (for makers) close: Originally November 15th - Extended to November 22nd
    Guide goes live: December 1
    Form for makers: https://shorturl.at/imDCe

    Whether you’re a remote worker crafting your own multi-local life or simply someone who cares about where your things come from, consider this your invitation to shop like you want the future to look and let Galicia’s artisans help you imagine it.

    Bibliography & Further Reading 

    Remote work & rural innovation in Galicia

    Galician crafts & policy context

    Examples of artisan businesses & initiatives

    Contributor

    Ángela-Jo Touza-Medina, M.A., LL.M., is a global nonprofit and social impact consultant, workforce strategy and DEIB advocate, as well as a recognised immigrant integration facilitator. She is the author of A Single Mother by Choice: A Journal for Solo Moms and founder of LiveGalicia, a platform supporting digital nomads, foreign residents, and returning Galicians as they build lives rooted in community and belonging. With over twenty years of experience guiding organisations and community-driven initiatives, her work sits at the intersection of equity, migration, and organisational resilience.

    Angela-Jo Touza-Medina
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