Roc Blackblock is a Catalan painter and graffiti artist known for his murals dedicated to historical memory and his works of social criticism. He has created more than 50 murals in this sense and is known for using art as a tool to make demands and raise awareness. He has worked on major projects such as the mural for the 40th anniversary of the Casinet and has been a protagonist in political and social controversies such as his work in support of Pablo Hasél.
Under the title Fent via, fent vida, the artists Roc Blackblock and Miquel Wert signed the largest mural in the history of Rebobinart and the largest representation of urban art in a train station in Spain. Covering more than 3,100 square metres of Barcelona’s Sant Andreu station, the artists worked together to create a chronology of the history of the railway in Catalonia, the neighbourhood where the station is located and a review of the evolution of the most sustainable form of mobility.
What was the creative and technical process behind the Sant Andreu station project?
It was a unique project. I think that the two artists chosen to present the proposal already had a line of work that was well suited to the commission, but we started with an idea that was a bit diffuse. It was about the history of the railway, but perhaps with a lot of undefined spaces that allowed us to make proposals and develop them. We made individual proposals, inspired by the photographic material we were given and the visit we made to the station together, and then we decided to put the two together. From these initial independent and autonomous ingredients, we created a space of confluence to make them fit together and to take the things we found most interesting from each proposal. I think this space of merging two proposals was a very interesting process.
We then developed a whole practical part that was a study of how to carry out the execution, because it was something that went beyond any previous experience we had. We created a style sheet that defined the parameters and the visual and graphic guidelines that would be applied throughout the mural, since the common thread was a series of lines that symbolised seasonal maps and chronological threads. Since it was an element that ran along all the walls, it allowed us to standardise and systematise parts of the work. It was quite a challenge, both the creative process and the design process, but in the end it was very interesting and we think it turned out quite well. Obviously we went through a long process of revision and agreement on the content, images, dates and milestones that marked this chronological line, and perhaps in some cases with many artistic concessions to the project and the client’s brief.
Are there any key elements of the mural that you would like to highlight?
From the project, I would like to highlight everything that is not visible behind the mural: the production, the development, the management, artists working side by side, a company as big and complex as Adif, a work as important as this….. These are all elements that conditioned it, it is the sea in which we had to sail; the route was well done, but they are issues that characterise the project. It is not the project that either of us would have done if we had been given absolute freedom to paint such a surface, but it was full of actors with a lot of protagonism in the process. I think it’s something that’s unknown or unseen in a walk-through, but it’s there. I would see it as an added value because I really believe that as a process, by merging the two proposals, what we felt were the strongest points of each proposal were combined. So we ended up with a result that would never have been a work of mine or Miquel’s, but I think it defines a tandem of the two, and I think that is a unique thing to take into account.
Did you face any challenges? If so, how did you overcome them?
We faced many challenges. The first was working together, but I think that was the least scary because we had enough experience and knew each other well enough to make sure it would work. The dimensions, the timing of the processes and sticking to a strategy to meet the deadlines. We did this by using all our experience, knowledge of the interventions, capacities and potentials, and making calculations that ultimately worked because we actually finished one day before the delivery date. From this point of view, it was also a challenge to work for so long in the conditions we were in, because it was a context with many people working, with many security checks… all this conditioned us, but we overcame it because there was no other option but to adapt to the situation. For me, who always works on my own, it was also a challenge to manage a team, between Miquel and myself, to give instructions, to learn to organise the work, to assign it, to delegate and to trust. There are many challenges in one, but I also believe that we were able to overcome them, firstly because of the good harmony and attitude of everyone involved, secondly because the assistants we had were people with technical and artistic skills equal or greater than my own, and because we took on the project knowing that it was something very special and that we were working our asses off. We also had to take into account the capacity and efficiency of Rebobinart to facilitate all the work at the production level.
How does the environment influence your artistic interpretation? First, in the case of the station. Then, in your work in general.
For me it is crucial because I believe that what defines art in public space is the place where it is, the context and the environment, otherwise there would be no difference between painting in a notebook and painting on a canvas. But it is precisely when we decide to paint in public space or on architectural supports that we play with these ingredients and encounter limitations that often lead us to sharpen our ingenuity to overcome them. In this sense, the environment is crucial and also because I understand that urban art and muralism introduce an element that becomes part of this environment and therefore must have some kind of interaction with it. It will highlight and emphasise some parts or it will question others, it will create a dialogue with that environment. It is an essential element.
In the case of Sant Andreu station, which is such a unique and essential part of everyday life, what characterised us, despite the fact that there could be different perspectives, was to understand that we were making the work for a transversal public, in a context in which transport has an almost vengeful charge as a sustainable public transport and because it is the only one capable of breaking with the dictatorship of coal. In this project, the environmental elements were the axes from which we developed the whole proposal.
What other artists or works have influenced your work?
I believe that we feed on a community and that the beauty of this diversity of the artistic universe is that we love one person’s graphic language, another’s conceptual part, another’s chromatic palette… We feed off each other.
How did the idea of the Murs de Bitàcola come about and what inspired you to start this project?
It has a very important background that grew and developed very slowly. In 2013 I started to work with historical photography and I started to enjoy it. Over the next seven years I went deeper and deeper into it until it almost became a monotheme. Then the pandemic came and I found myself at a point where the whole agenda I had planned fell apart and I felt the need to respond to the situation in some way. As a result of this, and thanks to the advice of Marc from Rebobinart, I began to consider the idea of bringing the work altogether, that is, working on issues of popular and community memory, and incorporating it into the same project. This was the starting point, and the change was not to work from mural to mural, but to bring them all together in a single project. It was at this point that I began to develop what I wanted to do, which was conditioned by the experience of years of painting on popular photographs and seeing that it’s not just those, but that for historical memory to work and move forward, the information, the context and the story behind the image are fundamental. From here I developed this proposal which tries to explain the episodes of the community’s history and to do it in the places where it happened, establishing and accompanying the interventions with information that gives details and context to the episode being painted. It has been a very well-received proposal that has produced around 50 murals so far. The main aim is to spread the memory of the community.
What difficulties did you encounter in carrying out the project?
What this project meant for me was a change of role, in addition to that of artist, because I had to coordinate. This means: taking responsibility for finding historians or memory groups to write the articles, finding the documentary part, the production part, coordinating logistical issues such as the crane, painting or accommodation, even the part of managing the paperwork and permits, or the part of contacting the community, meetings, etc. Also the subsequent work of coordinating all the content, receiving the articles and photos, selecting them, sending them to the person who will do the proofreading, the translations, publishing on the website, ordering the engraved plaque, preparing the QR code to be added to the wall…. I am very happy with the final proposal, which I think can grow and expand a lot, in terms of proposals or activities that can be added, but there is a lot of work behind it that is invisible and that for now, given that it is a very small structure, falls on me.
What is the research process you go through before starting a mural?
It depends on the project. Each one is closely linked to the reality and characteristics of the people who commission it, so in some cases I find a memory group that has been working on a theme for some time, for example. In other cases, I find a city council that is working on historical memory through its culture or memory department; and in other cases, I work almost independently and it is me who goes behind closed doors to make proposals to a city council, organisations or associations of a memorial nature. Each of these cases has different possibilities. However, since I have been working in the sector for years, I have a wide range of contacts with professionals and public resources (regional archives, libraries…), which become a set of tools to choose the most efficient in each case.
What led you to focus your work on historical memory and social denunciation?
It wasn’t a conscious act, quite the opposite: I got involved without realising it, and at a certain point, looking back, I realised that I had been working on this theme for years and had accumulated murals on it. They are themes of memory and social denunciation, because memory also has a foot in social denunciation, above all because of the reality and the politics of memory that we have in this country, and because there is a whole series of uncomfortable memories that have been made invisible or whitewashed and distorted. Therefore, it is part of the justification and anti-fascist memory to address the issue of memory in the Spanish state. But in itself, memory also has a desire for reflection, revision and social transformation, in that the view of the past includes all the diversity and complexity of registers that there may be, and has a very retrospective view, because it refers to the past, the present and the future. It seems to me to be an ideal field because there is a part that has to be carried out by public administration and therefore has to be done from a professional point of view, and then there is the more militant part, which is not incompatible with the policies of public administration on matters of memory, nor can it replace them. They are not interchangeable, both have to be done, and this gives me the opportunity to develop professionally in this field, in a sector and on a subject that moves me personally and politically.
Do you believe in the importance of art in public spaces? Why?
Yes, I think it’s essential. What’s more, art is one of the most important manifestations of any society or culture, and it has to be in public space, actively or passively. Either because it is not, because it is totally mediatised and controlled, because it is spontaneous, or all the intermediate points between all these possibilities. When you arrive in a city and walk down the street, what you find is a thermometer that gives you a pulse of the city, the people who live there and the politicians who govern it. How we decorate, inhabit and participate in our public spaces defines us as people and as a community.
How do you see the evolution of urban art in recent years and in the years to come, especially in terms of social issues?
I think it is going through a process in which there is less and less counterculture and more assimilation, especially the side that is more linked to contemporary culture (graffiti, hip-hop; because muralism has a much longer trajectory). I think that in the social sphere, the problem we are experiencing is spectacularisation; it is becoming a mainstream element and therefore it is being emptied of content. I would even go so far as to say that the content it has is being reduced or simplified. I believe that the main cause is a capitalist or neo-liberal model of society, which will end up (or is the main risk that we could find ourselves in) turning art into just another market product, capitalised on by the big brands and the big economic lobbies.
What is your vision for the future of urban artists in Catalonia?
I think that Catalonia continues to depend on the government team of each city and the characteristics of each place, and can experience almost antagonistic realities: in some places it is celebrated and welcomed, and in others, frankly, it is very complicated to carry out interventions, especially in the case of Barcelona. I think we have a scenario where there is a lack of consensus and support from the public administration. Consensus in the sense that in some places there are tentative proposals and activities that give the impression of support, while in others we continue to be criminalised. Lack of support, in the sense that there are still many city councils that organise competitions or festivals of urban art and therefore give it value, but they do so in precarious conditions that don’t seem to take seriously what mural painting can contribute to society, rather it is treated as if it were a leisure activity. It is one step forward and two steps back. I think we still have a long way to go, a lot of education needs to be done and the administrations need to not only appreciate and understand what muralism can contribute to the community, to cities and towns, but also to understand that we artists are members of that community, we are people who want to develop our activities and we need certain facilities, which is the opposite of what we find. This is a demand that we also make as citizens: we want to develop these activities and we want to do it normally.
