Boa Mistura is an artistic collective that consists of a multidisciplinary team that share their roots in graffiti and public space. “Boa Mistura” is a Portuguese expression that means “Good Mix” and it evokes the diversity that serves as a creative principle for the group. Although they had already painted a coauthored mural in 2001, Boa Mistura was born in Madrid in 2002, and after consolidating itself in the world of urban art on a global level, in 2010 they opened their headquarters: the Boa Estudio in Madrid. Their style is characterized by the hybridization of architectural, graphic and typographic elements, in polysemic artworks that allow multiple readings depending on the standpoint of the beholder. The simplification of shapes, the layering, and the dynamics between the flat and the three-dimensional are constant strategies in their work.

They have intervened numerous spaces in Brasil, Argelia, USA, Kenya, and China, among others. The founding members of the collective are: Javier Serrano Guerra, Juan Jaume Fernández, Pablo Ferreiro Mederos y Pablo Purón Carrillo. After the artistic intervention of Boa Mistura – of more than one hundred square meters – at Livensa Living in Getafe, we talked to Pablo Purón about the artistic act of intervening public space, the production of large format works and the role that art can have in the building of new urban landscapes.

As a group, you have been invited to intervene public spaces in different cities, as well as art centers and foundations, or in this case student residences. All these actions share a commitment to these spaces and a certain “collaboration” with them. Could you explain a little about the process of contextualization and dialogue with the space that you carry out when a project is presented to you?

When we are invited to participate in projects or when we detect an idea, the first thing is to study if it makes sense to do a project there. Many times it is thought that urban art can be located anywhere, but there are times when we feel that it does not have a place or that it does not make much sense to do a project in that emplacement. For this reason, the first question we always ask ourselves is whether it makes sense to work in that place. Once we agree that the answer is yes, we start looking at how to respond to that site.

Normally this requires some field research on the place: what is going to surround the work and with what is it going to coexist. At the end, art in public space is linked to that enclave where it will remain. It’s not like studio works: you paint them in your studio and they can end up hung in Berlin, Barcelona, London or China and it doesn’t matter, it’s a dialogue between the artist and the work. But in the case of street art, we strive to establish a dialogue and a link with the place where the works are going to remain anchored. This is perhaps the most important task for us, and definitely the one that takes the most time: to decipher that place, to find what that stimulus is, the thread that allows you to get out of the maze and develop an idea. This process is sometimes immediate, but sometimes it takes days, sometimes weeks… For us it is the spark and the starting point of a project.

Whether a project is good depends mainly on having been able to respond to the place. Throughout this process, we must connect to the community, that we see as important as the work because it is those neighbors who are going to live with that work. When we leave and finish it, it becomes theirs. We begin with the dialogue with those who are going to live with the work. The execution is what you already know, but how it will respond varies from site to site. At the end, each place has its own identity, its own characteristics and we give a very visceral response from our perception and artistic vision of this community. It does not have to be mathematical or scientific, but it is what arises for us from the stimuli we receive from places.

Do you feel reflected in the creative methodologies of any other referent, movement or artistic collective?

Partly. With these types of creative processes we have felt aligned with the Basurama collective, with whom we worked in 2012 for the first time. They are an architectural collective that apply this community-based process of first entering into dialogue with the people and involving them in the making of the project. Slowly, working hand in hand with them, we began to implement that process in our own projects that have made us develop and consolidate a methodology that we apply today.

In recent months, the group has carried out an artistic intervention at Livensa Living in Getafe, produced by Rebobinart. Occupying a total of 100 square meters, it was decided to superimpose letters that generated different words and created geometries with contrasting colors. The two chosen words were HOME – located at the outside wall – and UNION – located inside the building. Could you explain a bit the creative process behind that choice?

In the residence project we decided to work with two concepts that represented the two spaces in which we would work: the exterior facade of the residence and the interior common rooms. In this case, for example, being a newly built residence, it is a place that does not yet have its own identity. What we decided to do is to continue with a line of research that we are developing in our studio: a chromatic line of typographic superimposition that would provide a new story for this building where identity is still being made. The works become one more stone in the identity-building of this new urban development that is taking place in Getafe.

We worked with two concepts: outside with the word ‘home’ because we really understand the residence as the first home outside the family house for young people. When one goes to a student residence sometimes they have not lived on their own, nor have they had their own nest, it usually is the first home once one flies from the parent’s nest. On the other hand, with the word ‘union’ in the common areas of the interior, the meeting areas, we speak about the connection between the residents.

What effect does this ambiguity and these possible non-immediate readings of the work have on beholders?

In the end, the typographic game generates an abstract piece because it doesn’t really have an immediate reading. But we do like that behind this abstraction generated by the typographical superimposition, there is a reason – that someone can at a certain moment interpret the letters and read the word. But typography really is an excuse to generate color patterns, and rhythms that we alter. Actually, the artistic fact is the modification of the color that is generated from the overlapping of characters. If you overlap the letters of the word ‘home’ with those colors, the sum does not give you that color. We are modifying these colors and they generate the chromatic rhythms that we want and we look for harmonies. In fact, we call this series of pieces “Armonías” (harmonies).

On a technical level, it was a very large format work. Does this format leave room for improvisation? What role do planning and accident play?

These kinds of pieces, which have a geometric and chromatic study behind them, have little room for improvisation. Because we really got there with the paving made and adapted so that the geometry is perfect. It doesn’t have much room for more visceral parts like those of more organic works that you almost create with the rhythm of your bodily movements with the brush on the wall. Yes, there are certain margins of variability in the piece that are given by the context and the environment. Designing on the computer screen, where in the end you create color guides, harmonies and color relationships that work on the screen, is not the same as transferring them to the wall. That with which the piece itself coexists makes you modify it. From the light it receives, to the original color of the wall, the floor, the sky… There are many factors that lead to modifications. In the specific case of the residence, of the original colors of the proposal, we modified practically all of them in situ , because you see how they coexist there, not only with each other, but also with the surroundings.

Finally, about the production process, how do you as a collective face an order of this magnitude?

The four founding members met in the world of graffiti at the age of fourteen. However, as we grew and began to work in a more professional manner on large-scale projects, we started to build a sporadic team that grows and decreases depending on the size of the projects that Boa Mistura studio has at any given time. There have been times when we have needed to become a team of twelve people, and among them there have been interns who have become part of the team. Right now, Javi Ballesteros and Irene García are permanent support members of production. In Livensa Living Getafe, the conception and design was carried out mainly by the four founding members, in a process in which Irene, who knows well our methodologies, even collaborated. Javi, Irene and María were essential assistants in the production, logistics and execution phases of the murals.

In the case of Livensa Living Getafe, you have developed a design commissioned by a brand, without giving up your style or your social commitment, incorporating the values of ‘home’ and ‘union’ that will contribute to building community. On the other hand, you have carried out quite different projects with the UN and with NGOs . What dynamics are generated in projects with this type of entity?

Well, normally working with this type of counterpart allows us to delve into contexts that are very alien to our day-to-day life, and very enriching. Reciprocally, they are very nourishing projects both for what we do and leave in these contexts, in these places, and for what we receive in these places. In the end, they are organizations that we use as a key to enter certain neighborhoods. For example, in Kibera (Nairobi, Kenya, 2016) with Kubuka, which is the association that worked there, and with « Ghetto Youth Focus Foundation » GYFF; or then Entrepazos when we went to Buenaventura (Colombia). They are agents who are already working on the field, who know the communities, who already have previous social work done there, and who act as a prelude so that when you arrive, you are endorsed by someone who already has a foothold in that place. What it allows us to do is to carry out a certain type of project, which we understand more as mid-term artistic residences, because in these cases much more than in any other the will is to respond to the local context and to a place that usually suffers from certain marginality, very heavy routines, crime rates. They are contexts in which whatever you do has a very strong responsibility with the people who live there. This happens with any intervention made in public spaces, but in these cases it is more evident because these are places where there is usually no access to other types of proposals.

What are the challenges when making artistic interventions in a totally different cultural context?

It gives us time to work in which we insert ourselves into the community, we try to experience the place as much as possible from within, and once again viscerally respond to the reality of the site and translate it into a project. I think it nourishes us a lot because it puts us in that urge to be in a place totally outside your comfort zone, totally alien to you, and try to get enough of the place and what you breathe to translate it into a project. artistic that also has the validation and approval of the community. These types of associations normally lay out a carpet for you to enter the communities and there is prior work done that greatly facilitates the work. Looking at what we contribute, it is also an approach to the neighborhoods from a totally different place, because art is a transversal tool, we also try to involve the neighbors in the execution of the work itself or in its conception . It is something that in some almost playful way is involving the neighbors in a transformation of their community.

Boa Mistura’s works are characterized by their symbiosis with space, the majority being ‘site specific ‘ and made depending on the place. This gives them a three-dimensional character that a flat mural would not have, since they incorporate the depth of architectural and landscape elements. In contrast, lettering, messages or simply typographical symbols are often introduced to establish the privileged point of view to look at the work and be able to read it. This in and out game gets even more complicated at Livensa Living Getafe, with the duality of having made a mural on an exterior wall and one on an interior wall. It seems that you do not stop generating new creative challenges.

Boa Mistura attends to the present and the challenges that it entails. What do you think are the new borders that artistic interventions can help breaking down?

From the first time we worked in a community, which was in South Africa in 2011, the neighbors themselves made us feel the responsibility we have as agents of transformation of public spaces. At the end, we are imposing our work in a place that does not belong to anyone and belongs to everyone, and somehow there we began to feel the responsibility towards those who are going to live with our work. We have always tried to respond to places in the most sensitive and coherent way. I believe that our line of work is going to continue going that way. Yes, there is one factor that is a fact: that urban art is increasingly popular and present in cities.

There is an urgent task of introspection and of understanding what is happening with street art, and in the end, among all the agents that make up the ecosystem of public space, we must organize and channel everything so that it is something that responds to specific needs, and not something that is produced in bulk and without any reason in the cities. Urban artists are crucial, of course, but also real estate developers, urban planners, architects, urban art curators, heritage conservators… Among all these agents who are condemned to coexist in public space, the challenge is to channel urban art and to avoid being flavour of the month, an empty embellishment solution for cities, but something that really makes sense in each place instead.

 

Mohamed l’Ghacham (1993) is a Mataró-based painter and muralist, born in Tanger (Morocco). Since his first contact with plastic arts through graffiti, he has moved into a style very influenced by classical painters and by the pictorical language of the Masters. Borrowing from Spanish Golden Age brownish palette’s and traditional composition, he has created his own language based on cotemporary muralism’s gestures, in an hybridation of technics that is rarely ever seen in street art. His characteristic visual imagery is focused on everydayness and detail, and has transformed him into an internationally recognized artist, with works in the United States, Italy and France. We talk to him about his big-scale and his studio work, about the importance of dialogue and respect when we intervene public space, and about the future paths of street art. (Photographs by Conor Gault)

As a mural artist, you have intervened in very diverse public spaces using many formats. However, your style is recognized by the use of brownish colors that blur the boundary between the intervened wall and its surroundings, and the incorporation of human figures with a certain costumbrist air. That said, we could say that your aesthetic is close to a strict realism that is also reflected in your studio work. Could you explain a little how the workshop paintings dialogue with the murals in public space?

My work both in the studio and on the street starts from the same base and I generally try to have coherence both with what I do in the studio and on the wall. The main difference between one and the other I think is the environment. In the end, when you work in the workshop, you are making an isolated piece that will be seen hanging in a white environment, and that in my case generates added pressure on whether it will work well or not. While on the street, the environment itself and how your mural works in the landscape already gives you a certainty about where to head or not, and you can quickly see if the piece will work. As for the technical process, it is practically the same in both cases except for the material used. Although I try to emulate the oil appearance on the street, it is impossible to achieve the same pictorial richness with plastic paint. On the other hand, painting in the street with a very clear time limit gives me the possibility of simplifying and sacrificing everything that is not important for the final piece and being able to transfer that same way of working to the studio where the pieces are usually left to me. Studio works tend to take a long time and I tend to doubt much more about where to go.

Recently, in March 2022, the murals of the Sant Andreu District project, produced by B- Murals Centre d’Art and Rebobinart, were inaugurated in Barcelona’s plaça d’en Xandri. In this project, you made murals that sought to make the elderly of Sant Andreu visible. How was the process of designing these murals and the collaboration with the other artists involved in the project?

For this mural, I started from Laura Abad’s interviews and photographs of the old people in the neighborhood. In the end, representing all those stories and people in one piece is not something that usually works, and less so in my type of work. Starting from the interviews, I decided to try to paint a scene that revolved around physical activity and social gatherings, beyond the typical image of serenity or rest which usually represents old people in murals and paintings. Being two identical canvases, I found it interesting to make a kind of loop of the same scene at two different times. I think that can unconsciously emphasize the feeling of activity and movement. As for the colors, I try not to be too aggressive and not to disturb the landscape and the city environment too much. Somehow, I try to contrast such large formats with colors that go unnoticed so that the impact on the environment is as respectful as possible.

As you mention, you collaborated closely with Laura Abad, who portrayed 12 elderly people from the neighborhood. How was this translation from a medium like photography to a large-format mural? What role does photography usually play in your creative process?

Laura’s photographs, being more of a studio work, did not fit much with my visual imagery or with the idea I had of the mural. But her photographs did serve as a base and to try different options. In my case photography is one more work tool such as a brush, I start from it to create my images, but I try not to be a slave. I use it more as a sketch and I add and remove things that work for me more than imitating photography pixel by pixel. The real challenge is to translate the language of photography into that of painting, sometimes with more success and others with less.

Moha x Xandri (2)

Your works convey a certain intimacy and everydayness that contrast with their size. Tell us a little about the challenges of working in large formats on a technical and artistic level.

The size of the walls is something that has a great impact and is very attractive for the general public in which I include myself, but I think that what is really difficult is to make something that has pictorial richness and that contributes something beyond just being an aesthetic element. In the end, there are many tools to adapt what you want in any format. In my case, I pay more attention to how a mural is painted than its size itself. For me the biggest challenge is usually time. In general, you have to solve a mural in five days or a week and many times the result does not depend solely on you: a good organization, good access to the wall, the welcome of the neighborhood, the weather, etc., have a lot to do with it. If those elements are not in harmony, they can greatly change your work experience and directly affect the result of your mural.

On a technical level, I have been active for several years and I have deeply internalized the steps and many times it is like a recipe that you know by heart and that depending on the context you vary to achieve the best result.

In my case, I start with a very simplified fit of the composition, I make a first color stain, getting as close as possible to the final colors to get an idea of how the mural works in the environment, then I redraw the entire mural to correct proportions. Then, I create the final composition, and I dedicate the last two days to finishing the details and seeing which first spots already work and which ones need more work.

Following the thread of intimacy, which also dominates the ENACTIU project: What reaction do you think urban passers-by might provoke in encountering one of your works – calm and restless – amid their day-to-day journeys? In other words, do you think showing this intimacy is a political act?

I do not consider my work to be politically charged, or at least I do not intend it to be. In the end, street painting, apart from being a dialogue with the city, is a dialogue with the public. My intention is not to “educate” or impose my ideas on people who happen to come across one of my works. Enough imposition is to find yourself in front of a giant image, so to impose on top of that my ideas or political biases or whatever they are would be too much.

My intention has more to do with highlighting and giving importance to moments of everyday life that we normalize and lose perspective of their importance, rather than giving moral lessons or things like that. I like political muralism, but I think that to make murals of a political nature, the first step is precisely to be an activist. I think that many times certain topics are used to generate a stir or join a trend, but these political claims are really something with a background that goes beyond virality in social networks.

I consider myself a painter and, in my case, painting is the most important thing. The concept, discourse or theme is something that can accompany my work, but I am not necessarily worried about having an elaborated message or one with a social or political background. I prefer that everyone who sees it read it or interpret it as they want.

Finally, in your work you have mastered figurative and impressionist techniques, quite a challenge. Looking to the future, what challenges do you set for yourself as an artist? Do you want to share any current project? What frontiers would you like to push in contemporary street art?

Well, if I’m honest, I’ve been a bit lost for a couple of years. So now I am reviewing what I’ve done and trying to reinvent myself and look for other types of finishes. But it’s a long road and, although not in my life, in my work I consider myself a patient person. I suppose that little by little my painting will gradually blur and get simplified. In the end, I like the gesture that allows you to make a first stain more than the countless hours making details that, in my case, tend to become more decorations than substantial changes in the final result. As for projects, I have some murals in Europe before the end of the year and for next year the idea would be to try to exhibit studio works, but I still don’t know very well where to go.

As for urban art, I don’t know what to tell you… On the one hand, I think it’s in a very good moment where it’s relatively easy to get your chance and be able to paint large-format murals with good budgets and production value. But, on the other hand, the competition is much greater than when I started. With so much bombardment of murals on social networks it is easy to get lost and end up too contaminated with so many references and comparisons.

Javier Royo, known in the xarxes as Javiroyo, was born in 1972 in Zaragoza. He describes his work as writing with drawings. With a clearly recognizable style, his ironic humor puts his finger on the sore spot and tackles in equal parts hot topics such as racism, discrimination and the climate crisis.

An illustrator and graphic designer, he has been running his own studio, Chispum, since 2007. He is also the founder of the vinyl publishing house Chispum and the weekly online graphic humor magazine L’Estafador, of which he is editor. He collaborates as an illustrator for El País, El Setmanal, Quart Poder, La maleta de Portbou and Visual, where he has generated more repercussion in social networks, with more than 300,000 followers. He has published several books and comics such as Homo Machus(2020); La vida es Sho(2018) and , La Cebolla Asesina. Sex, lies and weapons of mass destruction(2009). He has been awarded the prize for best comic awarded by the Saló de Còmic d’Aragó (2018); he was a finalist in the Illustration World Awards, Environmental Illustration; he holds the Junceda d’Il-lustració award for best APIC comic (2016). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in cities such as Madrid, Lleida, Zaragoza, Havana, Brussels and Tokyo.

Among other things, your language is known for using irony and sarcasm in a comical way. How important is humour in dealing with serious topics or sensitive issues and what are its boundaries, if any?

To use humour is to undress serious subjects, it is a way of giving a peripheral vision of a delicate subject.

I believe that humour should not have limits, I think it is made to play with those borders between what is allowed and what is irreverent; between what we believe is already built, therefore, it should not be questioned. That’s why we have to touch those issues that seem to remain taboo because it is the only way to make us all as a society have a better mental health.  

Feminism takes a very prominent place in your work, how do you think humour can help to destroy male chauvinism?

I believe that what humour does above all is to highlight things that we have in front of us and that we often take for granted. So, humour really puts into question things that we take for granted and that are not normal.

In the case of feminism and the fight against male chauvinism and for equality, above all we have to highlight those factors that end up exposing the system, since a lot of situations and facts that have to do with the inequality of women and that sometimes do not seem to be so obvious, tend to happen all the time. That is why humour and visibility play such an important role.

In your career there are works with large publishers, but you have also been involved in smaller fanzine projects. Which attributes of both worlds are the ones you like?

I started in the world of fanzines, publishing when they were still printed with photocopies and stapled, with a small scope, since they made a hundred copies. I think that in the end, more than the format is an attitude towards your work, that’s why I can continue publishing in fanzines while I publish on Instagram.

Even though in the networks everything is more susceptible, since they can censor my work, for example, I recently had a problem with a cartoon about suicide. Even and so. my way of acting does not change, and my goal remains the same, both in the most alternative worlds as in the most institutionalized. What interests me is to be able to reach the people, since in the end the scope of freedom and publication is generated by each one of us.

-You have a great influence through social networks such as Instagram or Twitter. What importance should be given to them and how do you think is the best way to use them as an artist?

Social networks can be different tools for each person. In my case Instagram is the network I use the most and where I have more followers, thus becoming my channel of communication, as if it were a digital newspaper because it is where I can transmit my work: messages with drawings.

Recently, talking to Julio Rey, a cartoonist who works for the newspaper El Mundo, he told me: “what you do on the networks is reaching far more people than the cartoons we do in the newspaper”, turning individuals into communicators.

You have to keep in mind that social networks have two sides. On the one hand, you can reach a lot of people and that can lead to some friction. In the end, in the networks you don’t have a defined audience, but everyone has access. In the past, when I used to publish in fanzines, magazines, or newspapers, I had a context, since it was bought by a specific audience and they were people who had common criteria, so the guidelines were clearer. Now with Instagram the context has blown up because, as I said, everyone has access, generating a volume of people who like your work and others who, even if they don’t like it, follow you.

Because of this freedom and easy access, it generates positive and negative comments, so I set myself some limits, so as not to enter the debates that are generated in the comments of my publications. I keep in mind that as followers come, they go and I don’t have to care about what they say, for better or worse. You have to take it all with caution, both the good comments and the bad ones, in the end I’m a little old, so I’m handling it pretty well.

What is your opinion about graffiti and the current street art scene?

I don’t know much about the graffiti world, since I come from the world of illustration, but I can still give you my point of view on the street art scene. I see a confluence between the spaces traditionally used by graffiti writers and those that many illustrators are currently using. Like the example of Amaia Arrazola, who has collaborated in the Art al Tram project, she started painting in paper and smaller formats, and now she is painting in large format murals.

When these confluences occur, I think that very beautiful and interesting things can emerge. I am very pro-mixes, I believe that evolution is based on adaptation, and this arises when you leave an environment to explore another, I can even compare it with the ecosystems in which animals live together. That’s how I see what is happening between graffiti and urban art; a mix of people coming from different places.

A comparison of what is happening in the world of urban art would be the current situation in the borders of countries, where we find a diversity of people and different stories that lead to a variety of actions, being these hot spots of action and change.

There are many changes happening in the world of graffiti, illustration and communication that I find very interesting.

What similarities do you think there are between the disciplines of graffiti, muralism and comics or graphic humour? Do you think it is important to load the works with conceptual content and avoid the purely aesthetic or playful?

There are very interesting connections, since they are developed in popular spaces. Comics and graphic humour come from the most popular world, from the street… So, it is more linked to reality and also to the most alternative. I was born in a neighbourhood in Zaragoza where all this already existed, because I remember there were rappers and a world that connected comic and graffiti.

I think there is a point of union between aesthetics and the fact of communicating concepts. And yes, it is very important to tell things. In my case, more than illustrating what I do is writing with the drawings, since I read comics as a child and that influenced my style, in which I have always been writing while drawing. Telling things with the image is a very powerful act and is a resource increasingly used, so I believe in its importance as a form of communication.

 

What are your artistic references beyond illustrators?

I could talk about Saul Steinberg, who was the grandfather of all of us. An artist who talked a lot about the visual writer and how to take it to other levels. As well as the designer and illustrator Bob Gill, the painter David Hockney, the artist David Shrigley, the artist Julian Opie, all of them references for me.

What do you consider the figure of Banksy to be in the contemporary art world and what is your assessment of your participation in the Banksy: The Art of Protest exhibition?

I think Banksy has been the great reference and artist who has been able to go beyond urban art without complexes and take it to great stages. I think he has been above all very smart, with a vision that combines many things, his work is really very complex. It is not only what we see or what he tells us, but it has an indisputable artistic quality. And it is associated with a whole communication strategy of the work itself and of the character. Therefore, I believe that as a figure and phenomenon he is essential to understand what is happening today. He is a figure who knows how to make the most of the moment and uses technology as a tool for dissemination, impacting on the most global issues with current reflections where many issues and situations that we are currently experiencing converge: globalization, art, political movements, repression, etc. From this point of view, I can conclude that he is a relevant figure.

On the other hand, having collaborated in Art al Tram, within the exhibition of “Banksy The Art of Protest” at the Design Museum of Barcelona, is something that excites me a lot. I have to add that having made my work sharing the space with such a figure makes you feel small and I think it is something circumstantial compared to an artist of such magnitude. I want to thank the opportunity and trust given by all the entities involved.

Do you have some project in hand that you would like to tell us about?

I want to tell you about a big project, almost vital, that links small projects I’m currently working on.

It focuses on approaching creativity through images and drawing. Among them is the book on creativity through drawing that I want to bring out in 2022. As well as the creativity space I’m working on to do Work Shops together with other artists. It will take place in Hospitalet, Barcelona, because we want to promote the meeting between people, to enhance the connections between them, because they are blurring in the digital context in which we live. Therefore, we propose to develop projects in community, always connecting it with creativity through drawing.

Lara Costafreda was born in Llardecans, Catalonia. She studied fashion and plastic arts at BAU (Barcelona), Central Saint Martins (London) and PUC-Rio (Brazil). In addition, she has a postgraduate degree in Creative Illustration and visual communication at the University of design EINA (Barcelona). Her technique includes various materials such as illustration, watercolor, oil and recently he has moved to large format work: muralism.

She combines her work as an illustrator and creative director of different magazines and international brands with teaching at various Catalan universities. At the same time, she is involved in social impact projects linked to the culture of peace, social justice and immigration as an artistic activist in the campaign “Volem acollir” (Casa nostra casa vostra), the clothing brand of the ambulant sellers of Barcelona Top Manta or the campaign of art, education and culture of the school of Llardecans (Lleida) to stop rural depopulation.

Her work and testimony have gained international recognition, reaching countries around the world such as: Chile, Mexico, Argentina, United Kingdom, China, France and Japan, among others.

Your work has a direct relationship with ecology, which we could define as a love letter to nature. What made you decide to work around this thematic line?

I grew up in a rural environment, with direct contact with nature and the outdoors. It is an inherent link of which I was not aware until I went to study design in Rio de Janeiro when I was 22 years old. It was then that I began to paint elements linked to nature, of Brazil and the Mediterranean. It was not a deliberate chosen style; it came very naturally and even today it is one of the themes that I like to illustrate the most.

You are a multidisciplinary artist who works with a wide range of techniques and media. What are the artistic and conceptual references that have influenced your work?

I don’t have very specific references, there are many things that I like or that influence me aesthetically as well as conceptually. Normally, I keep them in folders that I review every time I start a work. My work process always starts with a moodboard; a collage of images that define the visual universe that I will work in that project. These images come from my archive, but mostly from the search I do specifically for each project. It’s a part of the process that I really enjoy.

You combine your work as an artist with teaching at universities such as BAU, LCI and Ramon Llull, in Barcelona. What do you think is the state of art education today? What virtues and weaknesses do you find?

I studied fashion design at a university that had a very conceptual and experimental educational line. We spent four years reviewing references that are closer to contemporary art and social criticism than to the closet of any person in Barcelona. The career taught me a working methodology that I keep as a treasure and that has helped me in countless things in life, both professionally and in the field of activism.

When I finished my degree, I got a reality check, which caused so much frustration among my colleagues. All that we had learned did not help us to work as a designer for Inditex, which was what we could aspire to if we did not stay in Barcelona. We had not been trained for commercial fashion design, nor were we prepared for the companies, nor for unbridled consumerism, nor for fierce capitalism.

At that moment we collectively complained about this fact: “how can it be that after four years of study we are not prepared for the working world? This question is the main insight that challenges teachers and educational institutions around the world every day. Is the ultimate purpose of education to serve a productive system? Does it teach us to live better education?

As a teacher I have seen how many universities have changed their model to provide an answer to the above question. Most of the universities I know do capitalist training; they teach students to develop the world of work so that when they leave, they can access the market and start producing quickly. If you look at it coldly, the student pays thousands of euros to make sure they have access to a working position when they finish. This is how the educational models we know work.

As Marina Garcés says in her book Escola d’aprenents:

“we humans are the ones who have to learn everything and never learn anything. This is the tragedy of education (…) What makes us human is having to be educated in order to be.  And what makes us human is that no educational system ensures that we learn anything important that will make us better. The history of mankind stages this tragedy: it is a long chain of learning and an even heavier chain of mistakes. We accumulate as much knowledge as incomprehension, as many inventions as disorientation”

 

In addition to your work as a designer, illustrator and creative director, you are involved in different social projects, such as Top Manta, the Barcelona Street vendors’ union. How is this activist side represented in your work? Have you ever turned down a collaboration or commission for not following your loyal values?

As a communications professional, I constantly live around marketing strategies and plans to sell things. One day I thought that all that knowledge could be at the service of people and projects that work to make the world a place where everyone can live with dignity.

Under this premise, in 2016 I co-launched, together with many other colleagues from the world of communication and activism, the campaign “We want to welcome” and the entity “Our house is your house”, which over the years has become a space from which we accompany transformative social projects and initiatives. We collaborate with many incredible groups that do a super necessary task and we do it from the economic altruism because we understand that society needs us to be able to create alternatives that help us to live better without expecting an economic reward in exchange.

This is in constant contradiction with everything in life, not only in my work. We live in a deeply individualistic world where everything is driven by money, recognition and power. It is impossible to escape 100% from this wheel because the bills must be paid at the end of the month. But even so, it is still important to be aware of it and try to change it.

Being conscious can be painful because you see all the violence in the world on a platter in front of you and you recognize yourself as a participant in it, but at the same time, consciousness is the only state of mind capable of imagining things differently, catapulting change and transforming society.

I work for whoever offers me a proposal and that always has contradictions. I say no to many things, especially those related to banks, since they invest a lot in art, culture and education, being these the most recurrent that usually come to me.  But even though I am very lucky, and I can choose a lot, all projects come with a contradiction under the arm.

Over time I’ve learned that we usually can’t decide where the money comes from, but we can decide where we put it. And I try to invest it in those people and those initiatives that work to make a fairer world; I buy in cooperatives and projects of responsible, ecological and proximity consumption. Just as I invest my free time putting my knowledge in communication next to social demands, I donate money when I can and try to generate a positive impact on what I can. I don’t always succeed, of course, but I work hard at it.

Your illustrations have become famous all over the world, but above all they have had a lot of repercussion in Asia. You have had the opportunity to make a presentation of your work in Shanghai, how is it to work with people who have a culture so different from yours? What aspects should you consider when presenting a project in China?

It all started by chance. An acquaintance of mine works in a fashion company and called me one day to ask me a favor. She had invited a group of Chinese journalists to Barcelona bored of the typical tourist tours they asked her to visit small workshops of creators and creators of the city. In half an hour I had 30 journalists and a representative of a Chinese shoe company in my studio. They made me a very curious interview and left.  The next day I was asked to illustrate the new campaign of the shoe brand and a month later I was in Shanghai presenting it.

That experience connected me with many people who kept proposing projects to me. Currently there is an agency that represents my work in China and before Covid19 I had gone a couple of times to present projects.

About cultural differences I would say that working for cultures different from ours is always a learning experience, but in this type of projects there are almost no transcendental differences. Advertising agencies work the same all over the world.

You have ventured into the world of large format muralism, and one of the works you have done in this sector has been a large format mural in the neighborhood of La Florida in Hospitalet del Llobregat. This intervention is part of the Pla Integral Les Planes Blocs la Florida and arose from a participatory session with children and young people of Esplai La Florida. How was the experience when executing a mural during a participatory process?

Very satisfactory, especially for the ease with which the Rebobinart team managed the production and execution of the mural.

Most of the large format murals I have done so far are printed on wallpaper because the clients asked for an illustration technique (watercolor) that would have been very difficult to do live on the wall.

A couple of years ago I painted the 700m2 of the rural school where I studied since I was a child with my brother, Titilamel, who is also dedicated to illustration, and even though I did a master’s degree that helped me to face the mural projects I have done, I have learned a lot with Rebobinart.

Lara Costafreda was born in Llardecans, Catalonia. She studied fashion and plastic arts at BAU (Barcelona), Central Saint Martins (London) and PUC-Rio (Brazil). In addition, she has a postgraduate degree in Creative Illustration and visual communication at the University of design EINA (Barcelona). Her technique includes various materials such as illustration, watercolor, oil and recently he has moved to large format work: muralism.

She combines her work as an illustrator and creative director of different magazines and international brands with teaching at various Catalan universities. At the same time, she is involved in social impact projects linked to the culture of peace, social justice and immigration as an artistic activist in the campaign “Volem acollir” (Casa nostra casa vostra), the clothing brand of the ambulant sellers of Barcelona Top Manta or the campaign of art, education and culture of the school of Llardecans (Lleida) to stop rural depopulation.

Her work and testimony have gained international recognition, reaching countries around the world such as: Chile, Mexico, Argentina, United Kingdom, China, France and Japan, among others.

Your work has a direct relationship with ecology, which we could define as a love letter to nature. What made you decide to work around this thematic line?

I grew up in a rural environment, with direct contact with nature and the outdoors. It is an inherent link of which I was not aware until I went to study design in Rio de Janeiro when I was 22 years old. It was then that I began to paint elements linked to nature, of Brazil and the Mediterranean. It was not a deliberate chosen style; it came very naturally and even today it is one of the themes that I like to illustrate the most.

You are a multidisciplinary artist who works with a wide range of techniques and media. What are the artistic and conceptual references that have influenced your work?

I don’t have very specific references, there are many things that I like or that influence me aesthetically as well as conceptually. Normally, I keep them in folders that I review every time I start a work. My work process always starts with a moodboard; a collage of images that define the visual universe that I will work in that project. These images come from my archive, but mostly from the search I do specifically for each project. It’s a part of the process that I really enjoy.

You combine your work as an artist with teaching at universities such as BAU, LCI and Ramon Llull, in Barcelona. What do you think is the state of art education today? What virtues and weaknesses do you find?

I studied fashion design at a university that had a very conceptual and experimental educational line. We spent four years reviewing references that are closer to contemporary art and social criticism than to the closet of any person in Barcelona. The career taught me a working methodology that I keep as a treasure and that has helped me in countless things in life, both professionally and in the field of activism.

When I finished my degree, I got a reality check, which caused so much frustration among my colleagues. All that we had learned did not help us to work as a designer for Inditex, which was what we could aspire to if we did not stay in Barcelona. We had not been trained for commercial fashion design, nor were we prepared for the companies, nor for unbridled consumerism, nor for fierce capitalism.

At that moment we collectively complained about this fact: “how can it be that after four years of study we are not prepared for the working world? This question is the main insight that challenges teachers and educational institutions around the world every day. Is the ultimate purpose of education to serve a productive system? Does it teach us to live better education?

As a teacher I have seen how many universities have changed their model to provide an answer to the above question. Most of the universities I know do capitalist training; they teach students to develop the world of work so that when they leave, they can access the market and start producing quickly. If you look at it coldly, the student pays thousands of euros to make sure they have access to a working position when they finish. This is how the educational models we know work.

As Marina Garcés says in her book Escola d’aprenents:

“we humans are the ones who have to learn everything and never learn anything. This is the tragedy of education (…) What makes us human is having to be educated in order to be.  And what makes us human is that no educational system ensures that we learn anything important that will make us better. The history of mankind stages this tragedy: it is a long chain of learning and an even heavier chain of mistakes. We accumulate as much knowledge as incomprehension, as many inventions as disorientation”

 

In addition to your work as a designer, illustrator and creative director, you are involved in different social projects, such as Top Manta, the Barcelona Street vendors’ union. How is this activist side represented in your work? Have you ever turned down a collaboration or commission for not following your loyal values?

As a communications professional, I constantly live around marketing strategies and plans to sell things. One day I thought that all that knowledge could be at the service of people and projects that work to make the world a place where everyone can live with dignity.

Under this premise, in 2016 I co-launched, together with many other colleagues from the world of communication and activism, the campaign “We want to welcome” and the entity “Our house is your house”, which over the years has become a space from which we accompany transformative social projects and initiatives. We collaborate with many incredible groups that do a super necessary task and we do it from the economic altruism because we understand that society needs us to be able to create alternatives that help us to live better without expecting an economic reward in exchange.

This is in constant contradiction with everything in life, not only in my work. We live in a deeply individualistic world where everything is driven by money, recognition and power. It is impossible to escape 100% from this wheel because the bills must be paid at the end of the month. But even so, it is still important to be aware of it and try to change it.

Being conscious can be painful because you see all the violence in the world on a platter in front of you and you recognize yourself as a participant in it, but at the same time, consciousness is the only state of mind capable of imagining things differently, catapulting change and transforming society.

I work for whoever offers me a proposal and that always has contradictions. I say no to many things, especially those related to banks, since they invest a lot in art, culture and education, being these the most recurrent that usually come to me.  But even though I am very lucky, and I can choose a lot, all projects come with a contradiction under the arm.

Over time I’ve learned that we usually can’t decide where the money comes from, but we can decide where we put it. And I try to invest it in those people and those initiatives that work to make a fairer world; I buy in cooperatives and projects of responsible, ecological and proximity consumption. Just as I invest my free time putting my knowledge in communication next to social demands, I donate money when I can and try to generate a positive impact on what I can. I don’t always succeed, of course, but I work hard at it.

Your illustrations have become famous all over the world, but above all they have had a lot of repercussion in Asia. You have had the opportunity to make a presentation of your work in Shanghai, how is it to work with people who have a culture so different from yours? What aspects should you consider when presenting a project in China?

It all started by chance. An acquaintance of mine works in a fashion company and called me one day to ask me a favor. She had invited a group of Chinese journalists to Barcelona bored of the typical tourist tours they asked her to visit small workshops of creators and creators of the city. In half an hour I had 30 journalists and a representative of a Chinese shoe company in my studio. They made me a very curious interview and left.  The next day I was asked to illustrate the new campaign of the shoe brand and a month later I was in Shanghai presenting it.

That experience connected me with many people who kept proposing projects to me. Currently there is an agency that represents my work in China and before Covid19 I had gone a couple of times to present projects.

About cultural differences I would say that working for cultures different from ours is always a learning experience, but in this type of projects there are almost no transcendental differences. Advertising agencies work the same all over the world.

You have ventured into the world of large format muralism, and one of the works you have done in this sector has been a large format mural in the neighborhood of La Florida in Hospitalet del Llobregat. This intervention is part of the Pla Integral Les Planes Blocs la Florida and arose from a participatory session with children and young people of Esplai La Florida. How was the experience when executing a mural during a participatory process?

Very satisfactory, especially for the ease with which the Rebobinart team managed the production and execution of the mural.

Most of the large format murals I have done so far are printed on wallpaper because the clients asked for an illustration technique (watercolor) that would have been very difficult to do live on the wall.

A couple of years ago I painted the 700m2 of the rural school where I studied since I was a child with my brother, Titilamel, who is also dedicated to illustration, and even though I did a master’s degree that helped me to face the mural projects I have done, I have learned a lot with Rebobinart.