As Manchester City emerges as the crowned champions of Europe, Craig had the privilege of being a part of the spectacular UEFA Champions League Final 2023 in Istanbul.

During this momentous event, Craig had the incredible opportunity to showcase his signature “Acrylic Fusion” technique live within the hospitality suites at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium.

Craig created two UEFA Champions League Final 2023 inspired football artworks using the brand colours of UEFA, Manchester City and Inter Milan.

I collaborated with Craig Black and his team as his agent in UEFA Champions League Final.

My article “Artificial Renaissance, artistic human connection via an artificial bond “ for Clot Magazine about advanced technologies and art.

Read the article:

https://www.clotmag.com/news/insight-artificial-renaissance-artistic-human-connection-via-an-artificial-bond

Images:

Living architecture, Casa Batllo Barcelona, Refik Anadol (2022)

Re-coding, Davide Quayola. Exhibition views

Author: İrem Erkin

Photo Credits: Jordi Sellas, Clement Chevel

My article about the challenges and changes that festivals and cultural entities may face in the future published in Future(s) of Festivals feature series for We Are Europe platform.

You can read it here:

Blending-physical-and-digital-experiences-to-create-new-festival-mechanisms

We created “Artists in Pijamas” project with my dear friend visual artist Mariano Pascual with the objective of creating inspiration and turning tides towards hope in hard and surreal times of pandemic.

The project is an online display of a selection of artworks created during the quarantine by artists to add vibrant colors and positivity in our new, alienated digital routines.

“Artists in Pijamas” through its instagram account exposed hopeful and mesmerizing artworks of 150 artists all around the world including names such as Anthony Burril, Eike König, Craig & Karl, Kelly Ann London, Stefan Marx, Piet Parra, Maria Herreros, Cleon Peterson, Amber Vittoria, Alex Trochut and many more…

“Apart” is the innovation hub of Firma branding agency. With my team, we activated the space by defining its concept, creating its content and communication strategy. We created a dynamic website coherent to the concept of the space.

And then we dynamized the space by inviting inspiring collaborators and organizing the #Firma Talks series which are conversations related to innovation, design, social Impact.

We collaborated with Offf Festival to host their Draft&Draw workshop. We iniciated our series #FirmaTalks with “Your Trash, My Treasure “ conversation about Upcycling in Industrial design between two prominent Catalan industrial designers, Andreu Carulla and Curro Claret. And in the second edition of the #Firma Talks, we organized a round table about circular economy .

Here is the highlights video of the event “Your Trash, My Treasure”

Here is Carulla & Claret’s interview that inspired us.

Want to know more? Check out the complete video of the talk.

“36 Days of Type” is a project that invites designers, illustrators and graphic artists to provide their vision of the signs that make up the alphabet.For 36 days participants are challenged to design a letter or a number each day, until completing a full alphabet, resulting in an overall picture about the ability to represent the same sign from many different views. This project aims to create a space for creation around typography and its endless graphic possibilities.” 36 Days of Type” was created in 2014 by the Spanish designers and friends Nina Sans and Rafa Goicoechea, and it had a great response with thousands of worldwide participants.

I curated with Nina & Rafa the first exhibition of “36 Days of Type” with the participation of 216 artists and designers in famous agency Vasava’s superb location with the fine exhibition design of Mister Karton. We worked meticulously in every detail of the exhibition from the artist selection to the design of the space.

We received 350 visitors on the opening night and during 2 weeks paralel to the exhibition, we organized talks, workshops and seminars about typography conducted by renown designers of Barcelona.

I was invited to the annual Creative Marathon workshops in Elisava as a guest lecturer.

My workshop " Life On Mars?" is inspired by the declaration of Elon Musk  about the human mission to Mars colony on 2024. 

His company SpaceX will send rockets with people from Earth who would form the first multiplanetary life and the spacefaring civilization. Will this be our only chance to re-create a new utopic society we want to live in ?

On the 2024 the people who arrive to Mars would need to construct a new mutual language to start the communication needed to discard the seeds of a new, promised, evolved, post-earth society. 

Through an utopic and futuristic approach, provoke the imagination of the participants and apply branding methodologies to explore a visual system to interpret and communicate the daily needs of a society. 

Artwork by Miguel Marques

I coordinated the first summer workshops programme of Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalunya's (IAAC) in Valldaura campus. I was in charge of the content creation, organization and communication of the event.

We invited prominent names in their fields to give the workshops. Lighting design by Antoni Arola, Graphic design by Lo Siento Studio, Landart by Jorge Rodriguez Gerada and Data Visualization by Bestiario Studio. All the tutors and the participants stayed in the beautiful Valldaura campus during 5 days, creating an accesible, inspirational and familiar working environment. 

Here are the videos of Antoni Arola, LoSiento Studio, Jorge Rodríguez Gereda talking about the programme.

On the last day we organised an exhibition of the results of the workshops and celebrated this experience with a dinner of 150 guests which started with Ferran Adria's talk. 

Here is the highlights video of this extraordinary experience.

Alex Trochut is a graphic designer, illustrator and typographer who lives in Brooklyn. In his art project “Binary Prints”, he invented a process through which two completely separate images could be shown on one surface; one which appears in light, and one which appears only in the dark. What followed was a collaboration with some of the premiere electronic musicians of our time such as James Murphy, Caribou, Four Tet, Damian Lazarus, Acid Pauli, John Talabot, Lucy.

I invited Alex Trochut to organize the “Binary Prints” exhibition in Barcelona. We set  the exhibition in the old factory of the Catalan beer brand Moritz. We invited DJ John Talabot on the opening night who was the part of the project. 350 visitors attended the opening night with invitation only, the exhibition lasted for 8 days and in total we receieved 1000 visitors. 

I was in charge of the content creation, organization, communication and promotion.

Here is the interview of Alex Trochut about the exhibition.  

I curated Alex Trochut's  "Binary Prints" exhibition in Istanbul in Mixer Gallery, one of Istanbul’s prominent galleries. Alex Trochut's works were exposed for the first time in Istanbul.

I have been collaborating with the Master of Illustration of the design school ELISAVA to organize talk series to inspire students by inviting important names such as Alex Trochut, Brosmind, Hey Studio to share their knowledge and passion with the future generation of designers.

Eike König is the founder of  Berlin based graphic design studio Hort, a pioneer in creating the visual language of contemporary graphic design. He is also a professor of Graphic Design and Illustration at the HfG University of Arts, Offenbach, Germany. 

I invited Eike König for an exhibition in Barcelona and he had the perfect idea of creating it with his very talented 14 art students from HfG University of Arts, Offenbach. 

14 Artists: Cosima Peth, David Schiesser,Hanne Schirmacher,Maria Sulymenko,Nadine Elena Kolodzley,Nora Mohr, Oriana Fenwick, Philipp Möller + Jan Münz, Pla Zöhler, Robin Klussmann,Ruben Fischer,Sandra Beer, Tom Kool.

Once in a lifetime experience…

photos: Dani Powell

Anuar Khalifi is an artist who lives between Barcelona and Tangier. In his works he explores orientalism, identity, stereotypes of the Islamic world, colonialism, extremisim and the consumer society. 

I curated his exhibition " Desoriente"  on the opening night of the art space Mothership in Barcelona.

The Mingarro brothers, Juan and Alejandro founded Brosmind studio in Barcelona in 2006. Their style is fresh and optimistic and always uses fantasy and humor. They combine commercial illustration with personal projects involving multiple disciplines, such as sculpture, music or video.

I invited Brosmind for an exhibition in which they exposed their project “ What’s inside ? “ into the light which was on process for years.

photos: Meritxell Arjalaguer & Dani Powell

Lapin is a French illustrator and urban sketcher based in Barcelona.

We worked with Lapin for 5 years and I was in charge of building his branding identity, creating&conceptualizing all of his projects with him involving me to his creative process,, managing his website, public relations and all communication channels.

Together we created his website, edited books such as “Te quiero Barcelona”, “Oldies but Goldies”, “Formula 1 “ and “ Catalan Modernism”, organized several exhibitions, book launches, self promotion projects and collaborations with brands. 

Mitte-Barcelona was established by the ex-director of Rojo project, Alejandra Raschkes 4 years ago as an art&design gallery in Barcelona. Nowadays it continues it’s life as a creative platform. I’ve been working with Mitte- Barcelona since it’s beginning, in building it’s identity and as it’s comunication director, and co-curator.

As an art gallery we have collaborated with many local and international artists, ilustrators, designers musicians and art&design schools and organized almost 150 exhibitions. 

photos: Dani Powell & Daniel Rivera

Hey is a graphic design studio based in Barcelona. They specialise in brand identity, editorial design and illustration with a unique style focusing on geometry, color and direct typography.

I invited Hey Studio for an exhibition and they created “ Oh My God” series which posed a  geometrical "look" in character design and various solutions for icons of a remote time.

Ikiru is a Japanese interior design store, based in Barcelona. To increase the visibility of the store, I created the window design concept “ Bedtime Stories” collaborating with the artists. 

I invited the Japanese artist Yoko Furusho, who is based in New York, to perform a live window painting under the concept. 

Here is the video of the event!

LoSiento is a graphic design studio specializing in Identity, Packaging & editorial directed by Borja Martínez.

I invited Losiento studio for an installation and they created the 4-D typography: the result of orthogonally intersecting two protrusions from the same letter, allowing viewers to read it from at least two different positions relative to the letter, which then brought them Laus 2012 award.

I collaborated with contemporary art gallery for children, Plom Gallery and curated two exhibitions. For the first exhibition I invited the talented artist Anuar Khalifi. The second exhibition was a pop-up which took place in the concept store Souq in Istanbul.

It was a blast to be able to reach to little art lovers!

MVIN is a street artist, living in Barcelona.This was the first time he carried his art from the streets of Barcelona into a gallery. 

I curated MVIN’s exhibition in Base Elements gallery which is reknown as a street art gallery which was the perfect location for his underground style.

We have respected artist’s anonymity during the communication and promotion of the exhibition. 

Atelier is the education center of Festival OFFF in Barcelona.  They focus on discovering and promoting pedagogical alternatives to boost post-digital creation.

I invited the students of Atelier to create jaw-dropping installations for 4 years in different locations such as Mitte Gallery and Casa Bonay.

photos: Dani Powell