Taquen and the Symbolic Gesture of Mutual Support at KROMATIC

TaquenHello, I'm Taquen, I come from Madrid, I'm a visual artist and muralist, working in urban art professionally for about ten years. I'm here in Sant Andreu de la Barca taking part in the Kromatic Festival.

Tell us about the mural you are making and what you wanted to convey.

TaquenWhat I was asked was whether I could address local culture and cooperation and teamwork, and I saw the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to the castellers, which in the end is pure teamwork, pure cooperation.

There is also a very interesting side to it: it is a part of the culture with room for all kinds of people. Everyone takes part, from children to older people, who stand lower down; men, women, depending on weight. That interested me a great deal, and the tribute is also to the way they are put together.

You have a very recognisable style: nature, but also those hands you wanted to paint here.

TaquenI use hands a lot because they say a great deal about people and about what we do for a living: a climber, the calluses of someone who works the land, a baker. And they are closely connected to craft, which is work that interests me very much.

There is a language in hands: hands express a huge amount, and often there is no need to speak. And here they are also a symbol of unity. I use them because they let me talk about the human being, but not directly: through other stories, other kinds of labour.

Here there are no faces, there are hands.

TaquenI preferred something more impersonal, something that spoke above all about the team rather than about personality or individuality.

With your works, what you want is not to stand out but to become part of the place.

TaquenBesides the fact that a great deal of urban art is being made now, I think it is very important that works made in the street, publicly, are made consciously and responsibly towards the setting, the place and the people who live in it.

I always say that I come, I paint, but I leave: I probably don't know whether I will ever see this wall again. But there are people who walk past here every day whom I am, in inverted commas, forcing to look at it. So I would like it at least not to distort the setting, but rather to give the impression that it was already there, both in the subject matter and in the palette: I try to make the palette resemble the area I'm working in, nothing too strident.

Do you think urban art can give dignity to the area it is in?

TaquenWe were talking about it here yesterday over a coffee: urban art is often criticised as a tool of gentrification, and I think we are at the last step of that process which happens in cities; quite the opposite.

I think it is a way of honouring certain elements of society, as the castellers are in this case, and that it confers a lot of dignity: both on the castellers' work and teamwork and on the place where it stands.

You have seen these days that each artist has their own way of starting a mural.

TaquenIn the end everyone has their own process, and it is fascinating to see how the work evolves. Even though we do the same thing, each of us has our own tricks and dodges, and it is great because you learn by watching others.

There is also a charitable side to your work: Pintaken, a benefit book for those affected by the DANA floods.

TaquenJust as I paint in the street, I don't like staying still or getting anchored to making murals alone: I like doing everything from collaborations with other people to this kind of project.

It was an idea that already existed, and then what happened with the DANA happened, sadly. Thanks to Andrea, a woman from Valencia who helped me a great deal, we were able to do this: we donated a good amount of money for toys for children affected by the DANA, whose Christmas presents that year might not have been what they hoped for. Thanks to this book and to everyone who bought it, we were able to get those toys to them.

How have you felt here, and how was it sharing the space with people passing while you painted?

TaquenVery good. The couple from the bar treat me very well, they bring me water, which is what we need most on days this hot.

But coming back to what I said earlier: in the end the most interesting thing is working in the street and above all in small towns. Because in small towns people aren't used to coming across culture in public, and I think that is what we have to fight for: that culture goes on being public, that art is accessible to everyone, that nobody has to pay an admission.

And I'm grateful above all to Rebobinart, to the town of Sant Andreu, to the council and to everyone who is to blame for us being able to do this.

Video by Ràdio Sant Andreu. Abridged version: direct quotes are kept; repetitions, overlapping speech and passages unrelated to the project are left out.