Here is the mini-documentary that captures a bit of the place, the people, the projects, the community and the spirit of the Growing Nowhere retreat in Catalunya. Enjoy the view!

the photos so far….

I came to Growing Nowhere after several weeks on the road around Europe, feeling nomadic and a bit up in the air. I came with no materials, no expectations, and no idea what I was getting myself into. I had in mind my project for London Decompression, a jellyfish/octopus mythical creature called Cephadaria.

Easier drawn than built...

To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. When I sat down and actually started planning out the construction of the creature, the more I thought about it the more impossible it seemed. What had I gotten myself into? Why had I volunteered for all this stress? There were moments when I really considered giving up.

The most intimidating thing is a blank canvas or a blank sheet of paper. The sheer vastness of possibilities can overwhelm you. But here at Growing Nowhere, I am surrounded by creative people who take all different approaches. Once I actually got my hands dirty, it started to take shape. I made important discoveries about what worked and what didn’t, and adjusted the plan accordingly. Once I had some clarity, I also found support from the community here and people stepped up to take on specific aspects of the project they were drawn to.

Now I feel incredibly optimistic. The project has morphed somewhat from what I originally conceived, but I think it’s for the better. Trial and error forced me to figure out what aspects were essential to the concept for me, and what could be adjusted.The essence is still there, and in the current form is even more pure.

We did an interesting exercise today plotting our creative flow and mindset over the course of the week on a graph. Mine went down, down, down until the breakthrough moment when I hit a very low place, then shot up to a euphoric high. It occurred to me that the space between those highs and lows is potent potential energy for creativity, and I need to embrace the cycle as part of the creative process, not be afraid of it. I needed to dive in to come out the other side. And once I did, I looked around and found wonderful piles of materials, ideas, and sunshine, and everything seems possible.

Greetings comrades, from Big RoN.

Following the failure of the original Growing Nowhere organisation to maintain order, an atmosphere of louche decadence was fomented by subversive creatives whose values were not in accordance with the aims of the project.

The Repùblic of Nowhere (RoN) has therefore been declared, by forces loyal to the original aims of the project. Due to provocations by those who would seek to undermine its success, a perimeter has been established to protect all the artists from this external threat.

All members of the collective were successfully inducted this evening, and are as one in the artistic struggle for a glorious future in the Republic of Nowhere. All have agreed to quadruple their artistic output to meet quotas.

Worker artists were also taken to the shopping mall, where all the latest consumer durables are on show; then to the industrial sites where the new nation will be built; and finally they were taken to the border area to see the barrier which protects them from unhealthy outside influences.

A small number of individuals who attempted to assert their own selfish private agendas were re-educated and learned the error of their ways. They are sorry for their thought crimes and were re-assimilated (under surveillance, naturally) to RoN society where they joined in the anthem with the other workers:
“We do RoN, RoN; and we do RoN RoN”.

And so, through shared values of Unity, Strength and Power, we will build an artistic utopia that will last a thousand years*

Communique ends

* or till Sunday, at least

Pere has many things hidden in his sheds, but I am struggling for a few of the essentials. I have some panels for an ersatz wall, some loudspeakers for authoritarian announcements, and even a uniform in the colour of the East German border guard.

I painted a door frame brown, to resemble a machine-gun (though when I look at it I think: “That is a door frame, painted brown – and badly too.”) I also made a vehicle checkpoint barrier.

Well, I put a girder between a couple of large paint pots and painted “Halt” on it. But this basic approach speaks strongly of the honest simplicity that will mark the glorious Republic of Nowhere.

Only a decadent capitalist would paint stripes on a barrier, or give it a rope to be pulled up with, when there are workers who are perfectly happy to fulfil their patriotic duty to the Republic by shifting it themselves.

However, despite all this progress in the glorious new artistic utopia that is being built; despite searching high and low, looking under every rock and making tens of woodlice homeless, I am having no success sourcing the following crucial – and fairly mundane, I think – elements:

10 T-62 tanks (T-34s would have done, I´m not a perfectionist)
1 1960s-style Berlin skyline
1 JFK lookalike (for “Ich bin ein Berliner” moments etc)

So, for now, the pile of tyres that was already there and a few painted blocks of wood that I have decorated will have to do.

But luxury and surfeit is for the weak. Onwards comrades, towards the bold future that we will build together in the Republic of Nowhere!

The 6am Needle in the Hay Stack Project is down – sad…. =(But let’s make this an happy post – here are a few pictures from the now defunct art project. Enjoy.

The 6am Needle in the Hay Stack Project has been a failure – I started the sound system at 6am and some people came down at 6.30am totally pissed off because of the loud music – although it was mostly ambient electronica until then and (almost) no beats. Sad – after all the work I did I have been forced to shut the project down barely half an hour after I started the first session.

A long discussion followed for pretty much for the rest of the day, where I tried to explain not only that art is not meant to please but also to provoke, and the provocation I wanted to achieve was indeed a wake up call to come enjoy and celebrate the birth of the day – but whatever….

Just before lunchtime I preferred to cut the polemics and just be on my own for the rest of the day. As a matter of fact I enjoyed getting one of Pere’s bikes for a ride into town, where I finally had a bocadillo de jamon after all the veggie food of the last days (good stuff, but I’m carnivore and I was craving jamon). I also bought some chorizo that I will share with everybody over the next few days and I truly enjoyed a little bike ride in the countryside, and to chill in the sun on a solitary field full of little white flowers and bees doing their job who respectfully left me alone. Then I spent the rest of the day sleeping in the barn and trying to figure out what to do.

I’m no sure if this is really the place where I can experiment my art, and not sure if this is the right community to develop art project with. So today I also bought 40 pairs of earplugs at the local hardware store, thinking that by providing earplugs for those who want to keep sleeping I would have more chance to run the project. But I finally decided that the best thing to do is to tear it all down tonight.

I’m sure nobody will really notice during the day, as the LEDs in the hay are not visible in the daylight – somebody will notice their absence only at end of the day, but of course everybody will notice the absence of sound tomorrow morning. Or maybe not, since everybody will be wearing earplugs. Whatever… anyway, I will find a way to reuse the material (of course) and to do something else. And I can’t wait for Toby to come in tomorrow so we can start working on the Singing Tree Project!

2009 was my first Nowhere, but I was lucky enough to be accepted here at the first Growing Nowhere in Reus. I initially intended to facilitate a mural, with no thought to space or context.

But I have spent the last year thinking about the changes that were brought about by 1989, and came here straight from the Berlin Wall anniversary celebrations.

So – perhaps unsurprisingly after visiting the painted sections of the Wall at the East Side Gallery again and seeing the 1,000 decorated dominoes that fell in a line all the way from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate – it occurred to me that a simulation of the border environment would be a good place to do any mural-style painting.

I am trying to recreate a suitably spartan environment where the use of colour and free artistic expression will sit at odds with a claustrophobic fenced-in feeling that a wall gives.

Pere has very kindly given us free reign over his farm, and it is amazing what can be found in the various barns and sheds that dot his land. With a little imagination and a lick of paint, I hope to build my own enclave of austerity.

I just finished the LED installation and the barn looks magic! =)

I can’t wait to start the djing sessions tomorrow morning! I also have great tunes that I just bought, can’t wait to start mixing them with the rising sun! =)

I’m so excited we finally started this – we are in the Pipirimosca bar for the first tutorial on how to use the blog, stay tuned for more articles flowing soon!