Good Mix: Urban Art Collective Creating Transformative Art in Public Spaces

Some of the best things in life are the result of a good mix, like that coffee you drink in the morning or the coupage wine with which you end the day. So, it is enriching that of power combine the best of each house to see a lineage born. Good mix —’good mix’ in Galician and Portuguese— It is a philosophy of life for a select group of people who have been born with the ability to create, fearlessly shouting what they feel. That may be why this group of friends decided to name their urban art collective that way more than twenty years ago.

Javier Serrano Guerra He is an architect specializing in landscaping. Juan Jaume Fernandez y Pablo Ferreiro Mederos, graduates in Fine Arts. While Pablo Puron Carrillo he opted for advertising and public relations. Together they express themselves in public spaces as a claim, yes, but also looking for his art to expand and make it ours.

They just received the Street Deco award in the first Escala Awards and its colorful proposals shine in Germany, Netherlands, Cuba, Kenya, France, United States, South Africa, Norway, Brazil, India, Panama o Colombia, to name a few countries. In our country they have been the architects of the initiative ‘I would eat you to verses’, filling the floors of Madrid and Barcelona with inspiring messages; rescuing the Polígono de la Paz, a marginal neighborhood of Murcia, or intertwining Madrid with other capitals through a basketball court what forms the wordunion’.

His art is full of reflection and social protest, but also joy, hope and good energy.

We talk to the collective Good mix to learn about his creative process and immerse ourselves in a proposal whose message goes deep into retinas and hearts.

Nierika. Guadalajara, Mexico. (Good mix)

How did the idea of ​​creating this ‘good mix’ come about?

Boa Mistura was born in 2001 in a very natural way, fruit of friendship and graffiti. We met at the end of the 90s painting the walls of the neighborhood, Alameda de Osuna, on the outskirts of Madrid. There was never a premeditated plan to put together the collective, we simply enjoyed painting together.

Perhaps the most important and thoughtful decision we made was in 2010. We had finished university studies and we bet everything we had to dedicate ourselves to art and continue the common project that we had started together years ago.

Lorizon. Fort de France, Martinique. (Good mix)

Why do you use public spaces?

Art reflects emotions, reflections or investigations that are transmitted between the artist and the public. Public space is an excellent medium for such communication. Because there are no intermediaries or filters between the artist and the receiver, it is a support that democratizes any cultural expression. This is where the enormous transformative potential of urban art resides.

With very little means your work can immediately reach many more people than those who visit any museum, cultural center or gallery. When a piece moves you, you feel somewhat complicit with the artist, and this gives you a feeling of pride for your city, your neighborhood or your wall.

“Urban art makes us look at the public space with different eyes, that we appropriate it, putting it in value”

Do you have your own manifesto?

We try to be faithful to our methodology and our principles. Public art must be respectful of the context and relate to it. We must establish common work networks that value a community, reflecting its history, its virtues, its desires or its shortcomings. We must be responsible, since we are appropriating something that does not belong only to us, but to the whole world.

That is why we try to involve, if the circumstances allow it, everyone who is interested in participating and doing their bit in this type of transformative process.

Shelter. Fuenlabrada Station, Madrid. (Boa Mistura)

How is your creative process?

Between 80% and 90% of our work is carried out in the studio. Once launched, a project goes through many phases. It begins with the first prospecting visits to the place to get to know it and make contact with the neighbors. Later on, we carry out one or more co-design dynamics, critical sessions or community debates, to later develop several design proposals, of which the winner is decided by voting in a neighborhood meeting.

Finally, We execute the work involving the community in the process. The murals that we usually develop have a scale that transcends the individual and requires a collective effort, It increases with the scale of the project.

We were forests. Caceres, Spain. (Boa Mistura)

Any funny anecdote in these twenty years?

We have millions of stories. As that time we decided to dress up as city council workers to paint a series of gray messages on a gray background throughout the center of Madrid. Logically, one of the real city council workers caught us red-handed and, without really understanding what we were doing, reported us to the police who ‘gave’ us a fine of 6,000 euros for such an act of vandalism.

We made the good decision to erase our gray message in front of the agents, with gray paint. thanks to which we get rid of the fine, which was canceled due to a form defect. There was no longer a gray message, there was a gray box like the ones that city council workers paint.

Balance. ShenZhen, China. (Good mix)

Where do you find inspiration?

Inspiration usually comes from the specific place where we work. We usually work in community precisely to find a story, a word, an idea, an impression, a poet… and react with a specific project. The relational component is very present in our work process.

On a formal level, we drink from many sources. We love the color, the typography, the words, we like to trace lines and planes that interact with each other to create compositions that encompass walls, buildings or complex spaces. Sometimes we work only with black or white, others with a very wide color spectrum. We like to write verses, use perspective or scale letters using them as simple geometric elements.

Life. Loja, Ecuador. (Good mix)

Controversies: what would you say to someone who doesn’t understand urban art?

Precisely By working on the street we are very exposed to public opinion, so we have to carry out our work responsibly. We must accept that our criteria, even if it is validated by a community or an institution, it will never satisfy everyone. Sometimes we make mistakes, or we don’t approach the project properly. Making mistakes is part of the learning process, it makes you grow, improve your practice and develop new or unexpected ideas.

Street art is something relatively new and, as such, it needs time to mature. and acquire a more transversal scope, which favors a greater acceptance of this discipline, which little by little is reaching the whole world.

Shoal of parrots. Manzanillo, Dominican Republic. (Boa Mistura)

You have just won an Interior Design Scale Award,
What does this type of recognition mean to you?

It is unusual for us to receive awards. There is no urban art academy or anything like that. We are used to working autonomously and achieving our goals independently. Fortunately, this type of recognition contribute significantly to accepting that public art is not something temporary and that can be included in the cultural circuits.

“Urban art is as important an art form as any other”

Light in the alleys. São Paulo Brazil. (Good mix)

Any project that you dream about in particular?

We dream of many and, little by little, we are making them come true.

Good mix in essence. (Good mix)

So we’ll have to be careful what we dream about. (Laughter).

2023-07-07 03:19:39
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