#2wTREE_002 - Chatibuky, where your world ends and mine begins.

Is the wolf as wild as the say in the stories?  courtesy of Chatibuky 

   Chatibuky is Julia Beamud, an illustrator from the same province in Spain as me, Castilla - La Mancha. She worked as a teacher in School of Art "Pedro Almodóvar" of Ciudad Real. Nowadays though she is based in London. Julia has decided to take a sabbatical so that she can work as a volunteer for a Childrens Charity. At the same time she is also improving her skills by attending design courses, workshops, exhibitions theaters,...and generally trying make the most of the opportunities available to her.

   I realized that Chatibuky was not a common name. So when I first started speaking to Julia I wanted to know the origins of the name, and one of my first questions was; What is the story of Chatibuky? 

   Chatibuky is an evocation of my childhood. My father used to call my mother this word. When he returned from work and opened the door of my house the first thing that he would say to her, cheerfully, would be: Chatibuky!!!. Sometimes he also called us like this. It brings back memories of The sound of the extractor fan in my house, my mother in the kitchen, my brother and me playing in the living room. Chatibuky means to me all these things. It was an affectionate word for my father, so I decided to register as my brand name in 2011. 

The wind tries to take me but can not  courtesy of Chatibuky 

    How do you understand Chatibuky? 

   I use Chatibuky for my own product development. In my case, illustration and graphic design go hand in hand. Everything I do looks very childish, it does not mean that I am focused only on children. I notice that the people I am trying to appeal to a wide age range. I am want to reach out to the child that still remains inside of us. 

   It looks like you have a diverse range of different clients, Who are they? 

   By choice, I left graphic design about one year or so ago to focused solely on illustration. I wanted to try to do my best at this, but graphic design, and my work as a teacher did not allow me enough time to work as an illustrator. I decided to reject more work in graphic design and do what I really wanted to do. The people who I deal with now are very different. They are people who like my work, and choose to buy it to decorate a bedroom or a living room and they ask me to make some illustrations or vinyl. 

Julia among legless birds 

   How do you interact with them? 

  I want my website to be a showcase of my work and my blog as well works in parallel because it is more spontaneous. I conceive y blog as a diary to show what I do. I like the idea of sharing the process of my projects with my readers. 

   As an architect I am really interesting in your design process from the moment that the idea starts until reach an outcome. How do you work out the concept in the field of illustration? 

   I can conceive and develop my projects in any way and any time. The length of the project can be as long as whatever is required by the idea. A simple idea for a project can appear during a train journey, sitting on a bench or working on another project, so I just make notes and sketches and wait until the idea formulates. Ideas are around you, even when you dream, so we just need to know how to see. It is also important to be free of them because they can become overwhelming. 

   After having a clear vision about one idea, I attempt to develop it using sketches until I feel so involved with it that my concern turns to being about whether it will be a single illustration, a series or something else. 

  The actual process is another story. The most enjoyable part is doing the sketches to investigate what I am looking for, the wording and the ideas. To Illustrate for other people's ideas is different, the process is closed but equally rewarding. 

The longer our legs were for running the more tormented we were, we had to cut them shorter to feel more and more free, and the less further away we could be, the further away we dreamt...  courtesy of Chatibuky

  I remember that when we met each other you used to write sentences you heard in your notebook. You were working in a project called “Microhistories” at that time, can I know more about this project? 

  That was a daily exercise, that I impose on myself of writing y thoughts and feelings during those days and months. I had so many notes but finally I illustrated the most meaningful to me. Each illustration define its own feelings. Doing what you like is more important than the outcome. You have to shape them as you think, and later they go wherever they have to go. 

   On your website I also notice that you have interesting collaborations in musical events. What is your experience of work in the music field? 

Explosión local  art work  
courtesy of Chatibuky

   Explosión Local, a music festival in Ciudad Real, has been the most representative work in this field. Additionally I have done posters for concerts and album artwork. Normally organizers had always a rough idea of what they wanted as it was the case of Explosión Local. First I had to understand the history of the event, next I needed to understand the features in order to start the design process and, of course, it was really important to understand the work previous events in order to maintain continuity. 

   Finally I was given near total freedom of the creative process and I only had to adjust my work to a few guidelines. 

   Nowadays you are based in London in your sabbatical but what is your current project? 

   I have just published a short childrens story about Doña Escotofina, another character from one of of my childhood experiences. My grandmother used to call me this with a little humor. It was last year when I thought to make Doña Escotofina one of my personal projects. I was working hard in sketches to bring her to life. Like her, I have more projects but she was lucky to go out. 

Miss Escotofina and the things she likes and dislikes
  courtesy of Chatibuky

   What was the motivation to develop this project of Doña Escotofina? 

  Many years ago I had a desire to be a volunteer in a disadvantaged country. Two years ago I was visiting Cambodia, a wonderful country, where kids, especially girls, have no so many resources. Prostitution is very obvious on the streets. I saw things that are not so fair but the innocence and craftiness of those kids who look happy with almost nothing made me wonder about so many things. 

   I had visited other places before, but after my visit to Cambodia I wanted to do something. A friend of mine knew about a British charity that works with children in Malawi. We contacted them to share the idea and suddenly Doña Escotofina came alive to try to help the children in that country a little. It has been a hard project to develop for financial issues. I thought that it would have been easier but It turned out more complicated. I learnt to encourage myself when something were difficult and no go back. 

   In the end we made it. 

1 balloon is enough for flying
  courtesy of Chatibuky

   When I look to details in Chatibuky logo I see that you keep same typographic characters but sometimes it appears a cat, a fish or a balloon, what do you mean by the differences? 

   I wanted to have the logo reflect somethings of my personality using these images as a trademark: 

   The Cat came about, having always found them quite arrogant animals until one day I found one abandoned by her mother in the patio of our house. I decided to keep it and found a wonderful friend. The characteristic is independence.

   The Fish. I normally swim, so, sometimes I feel like a fish. My aunt taught me in a summer house when I was little girl. Swimming is like flying, floating in the water and moving around is amazing. This is a kind of freedom impossible to find. It is only you and the water. 

   The Balloon. You can never stop flying. Sometimes our legs are so heavy for walking and we are afraid to start new projects or even go to new places, especially we are afraid of the unknown and change. I think this is a mistake because the only thing that can happen is that you will learn new things to keep flying in this life.

Chatibuky is me. 

   Julia says that her job as an illustrator is always outside of teaching, both are two different things and she is not the same Julia working as an illustrator and as a teacher. For me, she is another legless bird around and this is the main reason to invite her to be a part of this chapter of 2wTree. Thank for your collaboration. Really appreciated, Julia.

        www.chatibuky.com          

  

Chatibuky products here

Es tiempo para “legless birds”.

Texto escrito para la colaboración en la sección dedicada a "Hispanohablantes en Asia" en la revista GLOBALASIA, edicción Mayo-Junio 2013 N.31. Accede al artículo aquí.

#2wTREE_001 - Basurama, in love we trash.

“Plastic Bang!Kok” - Building a rainbow courtesy of Basurama Asociación

  Sometimes there are surprises that I really appreciate while I am working abroad. Being in Singapore, I saw once a collection of photos about a project in Bangkok in a social network of some designer colleagues from Thailand. That project was called "Plastic Bang!Kok” and was signed by Basurama. Suddenly many questions in my mind due to Basurama is a architects collective from my university, ETSAM (Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain). How did they do to reach to Bangkok with theirs projects? After long searching through my contacts in internet I found one member of this collective working in São Paulo, Brazil. He is Miguel Rodríguez, but he prefers to be called Mister, an architect with one of the minds more curious that I met in my university times and we lost contact for many years. Connection Singapore - São Paulo starts to work using emails and finally I can get answers. Easy  What is “Plastic Bang!Kok”? 

   "Plastic Bang!Kok" was a proposal for the Bangkok design biennial 2012. We had been looking for an event which could host Basurama in Thailand with the help of the Spanish embassy in that country. They also helped us to find a nice partnership, a good space to work, waste, and a group of design and architecture students to collaborate in the construction. 

    In a few days, we displayed on site our technology to transform the local waste (discarded plastic bags) into four objects of inflatable architecture to occupy a public space in a collaborative process during the biennial. In the past two years, we have been experimenting with inflatable architecture for many reasons. You can use plastic waste, which is all around, you can create huge and well illuminated spaces and it only consumes electricity to blow them and it´s a very simple technology, which everybody can learn and transmit to others. Just download the Inflatocookbook by Alien Ant Farm y check it!

   I remember to see you riding a tricycle around the school yard of our university that vehicle was built using recycled materials during the first edition of Basurama. It was only a seed. What is Basurama? 

 
   Basurama supposed an extra curricular adventure which led a group of friends to self instruct, mixing research and action. The necessary way of setting an alternative to that academic ambient, which I consider so obsolete.
   It all began as a open festival to create collectively out of waste founded around Madrid and industrial areas in the suburbs. All the creative energy collected in those first editions and the success we got, made us grow and evolute into cultural producers. Three years later we were out of the school organizing all kind of events to think about several topics and create with waste and 7 years later we are travelling all around America doing architecture and design out of waste. 

The city is to people! is an intervention of Basurama and Muda  Coletivo mounted on Minhocão.  

The Real Estate Bubble  was  built  using  recycled  materials  and  seeks  to  draw  the  attention 

of passers for speculation in the city of São Paulo.

    Now you are living in Brazil and it makes me remember my Erasmus times when I was living in Lisbon, Portugal. Let´s talk in Portuguese language a little bit. Como é que chega Basurama a Brazil? 

    Basurama começou a viajar para fora de Espanha no ano 2007, com um projecto para a agência espanhola para o desenvolvimento (que então era muito forte na América Latina) e essa parceria marcou totalmente a evolução do grupo. O projecto RUS (Resíduos Urbanos Sólidos) foi uma turnê por vários países com uma proposta dupla: pesquisa sobre o papel do lixo e da reutilização informal em cada país (o lixo é cultura porque cada sociedade se expressa através de um lixo diferente) e um projecto de intervenção artístico/arquitetónica no espaço público colaborando com colectivos locais.

   Não só aprendemos como outras culturas aproveitam os resíduos como recursos, mas também conhecemos um grande número de artistas, técnicas de design e arquitetura popular, lugares abandonados, aterros. Uma imersão numa experiência que mudou a vida de todos nós. 

around Jalan Alun-Alun Seletan, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Courtesy of Cahya Ilahi.

    Due to your words pops up in my mind a place, a huge urban space with two big trees in one side of a square located in Yogjakarta -Indonesia-, a bohemian city-estate from a western point of view. Many people used to spend the night there playing with the gap generated per these two trees. Actually many of your proposals match quite well with that place or surroundings. Do you think that Basurama can reach there with any of their proposals? 

   In our projects, we are developing and spreading several technologies to create ephemeral and 'soft' interventions in the public space. We consider the existing local reality as the most important element to stablish a productive dialogue. Not only the natural, the social and the cultural heritage, even we consider other other type of local resources, as solid or domestic waste, as one of the main raw material sources for our projects.

  We have tested our working method in several places all around the world, and we (Basurama and local partners) always had a good experience. Working with local resources not only led us to create more sustainable projects, but it helped us to have a great human collaboration and a great learning too. 

 Mister from Basurama Collective

   Due to our comments I remember our first years in University when the most of us used to think in being an architect working around world and nowadays many of us are in overseas. It looks that this global crisis has helped to develop our international skills faster that we imagined on that time, don't you think so? 

   I think that nobody at all could expect what was coming in 2008. We were instructed to pursue the role of the star system architects, whose offices were planning the biggest projects in history those years. Koolhas in Beijing, Norman Foster all around the world, Zaha Hadid, MVRDV, Herzog de Meuron... All based in the imaginary of architectural magazines, the development of 'brand cities'. 

   I felt that there were these alternatives: being part of the housing industry, and designing the ugly and industrialized dwellings that caused the real state bubble, or taking part in the architectural competition system. Both options were harmful in my opinion. The first one is opposed to creativity and my idea of a good life, and time has demonstrated that was unsustainable. The architectural context was not a better way. It makes everybody fight against everybody, discarding an outstanding an incredible amount of work by the 99,9% of the teams competing. The working conditions generated by that system are completely slavery, and I think they take many participants to frustration, feeling that they could not be the GOOD ONES. 

   The way where I have been the most comfortable is trying to build my own (our) way to build and create, agreeing with my ethics and my need of freedom.

    Let's talk about the origin and do it in Spanish language. Te conocí en una clase de proyectos en la ETSAM en la que un profesor nos hablo de la estética de un filósofo alemán para aplicarla al proyecto de un refugio que estábamos haciendo en ese taller. Cuando él terminó tú le preguntaste "Mi abuela me ha dicho que la cama siempre se orienta al Norte y la cabeza hay que situarla en el muro opuesto de la puerta de la habitación mientras se duerme ¿Sigo los consejos de mi abuela o persigo el ideal alemán?" Parece que no pero de aquello hace ya casi 14 años y, a día de hoy, parecería que estuvieses viendo el futuro del presente que tanto lamentamos. ¿Qué te queda aún de aquello? 

  Esa anécdota en concreto me recuerda bastante a como viví mi paso por la Escuela de Arquitectura de Madrid. Aquella participación tenía más de irreverente que de fundamentada, pero respondía a un profundo desencanto con la forma de enseñar arquitectura que vi esos años. En concreto, aquellos profesores de proyectos eran nefastos, pero en general, el método estaba muy dirigido a formar arquitectos concursantes, y sólo algunos profesores fomentaban que el alumno creara su propio perfil de arquitecto a la medida de sus necesidades, y aún más importante, de las necesidades reales que hay de arquitectos hoy en día en España. 

  La primera década del S.XXI ha supuesto una verdadera catarsis. El mundo de la arquitectura profesional entró en crisis a medida que la burbuja inmobiliaria-financiera explotaba, y el acceso al mundo laboral que habíamos conocido en los 90 ya no es más posible. 

    Creo que la irreverencia me acompaña todavía. 

  Recuerdo otra vez que coincidimos en los pasillos de la ETSAM en Madrid tu ibas a proyectar no se que película para el cineclub de la escuela y yo iba a comprar algunos DVD para el cine-forum que organizaba en mi pueblo. Pero hablando de basura tu vives ahora en Sao Paulo y yo en Singapur. ¿Qué piensas que se podría hacer con mucha de la basura producida en Hollywood y que copa las carteleras en muchas partes del mundo? ¿Tenéis algún proyecto? 

   Juasjuas,... ¡Imagínate la cantidad de material sobrante que genera una industria como la del cine en Estados Unidos! Recuerdo la película sobre la vida de Ed Wood, en la que contaban como aprovechaba planos de varias películas y los colocaba sin prejuicios en sus producciones. O "Campanadas a medianoche" de Orson Welles. Aquel plano secuencia del principio está grabado en un set que se había construído para otra película, pero que el aprovechó durante la noche para su película. 

   Tienes razón, la industria del cine produce una ingente cantidad de cine pésimo, muchas películas del montón, algunas buenas y unas pocas joyas. Estoy de acuerdo contigo en que el cine norteamericano invade las salas del mundo y muchas veces devora las industrias locales con políticas muy agresivas de marketing y distribución. Pero también debo admitir que admiro cómo los EE. UU. han creado semejante industria a partir de un arte como el cine. Es un prodigio increíble de capitalismo cognitivo, que ha creado una riqueza incalculable, empleo y patrimonio con la cultura como materia prima. 
   Hablando de proyectos de Basurama, siempre nos ha gustado usar material audiovisual existente como programas de tv, viejos anuncios, películas, para resignificarlos, transformarlos y hasta pervertirlos diría, creando cosas nuevas con ellos. No hay nada más divertido que quitarle el ese aura sagrada y de dogma que tiene un anuncio publicitario, para transformarlo en algo satírico y divertido como Dinero tv. 

   As per Mister words, all this interview is just an historical introduction about Basurama and he really wants to talk about some projects on going that he is handling now as "O lixo não existe", participatory architectures made ​​from open technologies available in Internet and using resources in anywhere, or "Pan Am", an international mapping about consumer landscapes in America.


Basurama is a architects collective working around the world. Mister is based in Brazil. If you want to contact him, please send an email to: brasil@basurama.org 
For more information about  Basurama,  click  here.