Street art to change and inspire | Boa Mistura | TEDxMadrid

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

A summary of the best work of this artistic collective based in Madrid. Street art to change and inspire, to move people and improve a space. Boa Mistura is a urban art group with roots in graffiti, born at the end of 2001. They develop their work in different fields: the most evolved trends of graffiti and mural painting, illustration, graphic design and collaborations with architects and interior designers. Their work has been shown in Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Casa Encendida, Museo D2 in Salamanca. They have collaborated with foundations such as ONCE, Intermon Oxfam, Cruz Roja or Antonio Gala.

What drives you to leave the comfort
of your house at 3 a.m.

to paint the city illegally?

You risk your neck, invest your time,

your money,

everything

in order to do something
we believe is very important.

First of all, I'd like to introduce you
to my colleagues:

Javier, architect,
Pablo, graphic designer,

Purone, advertising agent and illustrator,

There's Juan over there,
he'll be playing the videos,

he's a Fine Arts graduate,

and I'm Rubén,
civil engineer and plastic artist.

We all left behind
our degrees and training

in order to connect with people

which we believe
is the duty of every artist:

to move, surprise, and inspire people.

A friend says, and I quote,

"Doctors cure,

mechanics fix cars,

and artists touch your heart."

We see urban art
as a means to connect with people.

For us, the city is
the perfect surface to perform on

for a variety of reasons.

The first is that there are
no intermediaries.

There are neither critics nor galleries.

The artist-general public
relationship is direct.

Also, there is no audience segmentation.

Art on the street is for everybody
not only for those who go to a museum.

And the best thing about the city
is that the scale is daunting.

The possibilities are massive.

If you perform in the city,
however, you should do it with a purpose.

In order to make it part of the city,
it must be constructive.

Throughout the years, with our work,
we have reached a conclusion

that has become a maxim for us:

If our work does not improve
the environment in which we intervene,

we don't carry it out.

Sometimes, you can restore public spaces

by carrying out very simple actions
such as painting with white.

For example, we created this series
of portraits of urban artists,

whose faces appear,
in a wink of metalanguage,

when partially cleaning
the deteriorated surface with white.

As artists who perform in the city,

we have a responsibility to it,

but we are also responsible
of the time in which we live.

Nowadays, words such as "crisis"

and "corruption" surround us.

These are very negative words
which wear us out.

We want to reverse this process

and enable positive words
to float around us.

That's why we paint

"joy" or "inspiration",

or "Imagination makes us infinite".

We believe that the mark
it leaves is very different.

There are always complicated cities,
of course, like Madrid.

Madrid is full of thorns,
everything is difficult and complex here,

You need permits, there's
a lot of bureaucracy,

you have to express yourself.

Any freely given display in the city
is quickly covered with gray.

But you can do art
even with the color gray.

You can act like them and paint with gray.

You can leave a series
of thought-provoking messages in the city,

which will make the viewer reflect upon
the fact that they are painted with gray.

We wrote, "Madrid, I want you colorful."

"Life--"

(Applause)

"Life can be a bed of roses."

Basically, a series of messages,

and of all these gray walls,
the record time was one week.

The one that lasted the least
was up for 18 minutes,

and Madrid's City Hall
now requires us to pay 6,000 euros

in fines for painting "Sky-Blue".

Our--

(Applause)

We know our work is ephemeral,
and we don't care,

not only do we not care;

we believe it's that characteristic
which makes it even more romantic,

more special.

Other times, our work lasts longer,
as is the case of Berlin.

We painted a piece
called "Die Umarmung" (The Hug),

where two figures come together
in an intimate embrace,

right in front of the Berlin Wall.

One of the figures bears
the symbol of the East,

and the other bears a tattoo
of the symbol of the West.

They symbolize the encounter

between East and West Germany
and the two Europes,

which were divided until that moment.

We learned to conceptually link
our work to the location,

making it more powerful.

We painted this piece
on the East Side Hotel,

located right in front of that piece of
the Berlin Wall that is still standing.

When we explained all this to the owner
of the hotel, before painting it,

he'd ask us, "How much
is this going to cost me?"

we'd respond, "Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.

It is our personal tribute
to dialogue, to understanding.

We want this to be our gift to Berlin."

And we paid for it
out of our own pockets

because we thought
that made it even more special.

(Applause)

So we learned to reflect
upon the specific space.

Since then, that concept,

that reflection in order to create
something that made sense there

started gaining in importance,

because our pieces aren't like
paintings or other works of art

that you can carry
from one place to another.

They are fixed to a place.

So we thought
apart from being physically linked,

if we manage to conceptually link
our work to a specific location,

we'll make it even more perfect.

So, our work--

There's Hamar, for example.

An architectural studio called
"Ecosistema Urbano" invited us

to Hamar to kickoff a process

that aimed to transform
a parking lot into a square.

In order to develop this project,

we drew inspiration from the patterns
on Scandinavian sweaters.

For Norwegians, these patterns
are like a national hallmark.

After interpreting these patterns

and drawing inspiration
from those particular geometries,

we painted the ground of the square.

In addition to modifying the public area,

we managed to modify people's perception.

We realized that this
used to be a parking for them,

but once it was painted,
it became a square.

It was only a thin coat of paint,
but we realized it had worked.

After that, we got involved in
a very special project in South Africa.

A gallery owner invited us to Cape Town,

to his artist-in-residence program
called "A Word of Art",

to carry out a piece on the walls
of a town called Woodstock.

It's a run-down town on the outskirts
of the city, it's dangerous,

it's a complicated place,
but living there the first few days,

we realized Mandela had left
an important mark there.

We have never heard the word
"inspiration" more times

than we did in South Africa.

So, we wanted to contribute
to that deep process of change

that is occurring in South Africa

and paint a series of walls,
portraying icons

and positive statements
to inspire young generations.

A neighbor gave us the key, he said,

"You never know where the next
Mandela will appear

nor what could have influenced him
to be who he is."

We also had the chance
to travel around there,

well, it's in the outskirts
of Cape Town, Khayelitsha,

a township with three million inhabitants.

It's a huge ocean of shacks,

and people live there
under very difficult conditions.

A cycling club was created there.

The founder began training three kids,
and at present, he trains 300.

This cycling club called Velokhaya became
a source of oxygen for that community,

because it's a place
where kids not only do sports,

but they also learn values like teamwork,

discipline and a profound sense
of belonging to a community.

This inspired us, and we thought,
"Let's get them involved,

let's get the instructors and the kids
to paint together with us."

Something that seemed
mundane at first,

was actually a turning point for us.

We realized
that through participatory art,

people not only modify their environment

but also the way they interact with it.

For these kids, their cycling club
wasn't just any club anymore.

It was the cool spot in town.

And they were proud
because they had painted it.

This blew us away.

We were amazed and we realized

we had to repeat and multiply
these types of experiences.

We saw that our work
could have a social component,

and that it could be a tool
for change in communities.

We don't know how we'll do it

because South Africa
was an altruistic project

that we paid for as well.

We're always on the edge,
but we know exactly want we want to do,

which is to use urban art
as a tool for change or a dynamic tool

in these kinds of communities.

A project we called "Crossroads".

Fortunately, the second stage arrived soon

and occurred in Brazil,
in January of this year.

There in Brazil,
specifically in São Paulo,

in the outskirts of São Paulo, in a place
that is already magical due to its name,

it's called Brasilandia.

We were lucky enough
to meet Dimas there,

who opened up the doors
of his house for us

and invited us to live with his family,

who treated us
as if we were five more sons

and became our own family,
the Reis Gonçalves.

Living in Brasilandia was
a really special experience,

we got to understand the favela,
it's a fascinating place.

People live very close to each other,

this makes their relationships
very intense,

and its architecture, which appears
to be chaotic and disorganized,

holds a very special beauty for us,
we think it has a vast potential.

From our point of view,
these hills are tremendously beautiful.

We never had a preliminary
idea for this project either,

we wanted to see what the place
had to offer, breathe the area.

We realized that those alleys,

which are a distinctive element
of the favela's urban fabric

as they link the upper area
to the lower one,

- well, we saw
that even though they represented

the veins that articulate
and enable the neighbours

to access their homes,
they were dark and dirty places.

We thought, "Let's bring in some light.
Let's bring in light and color."

We thought we could make
use of anamorphosis

and put some -

well, it's a technique
where, from a specific angle,

the passerby can observe

how everything comes together.

That abstraction flattens out
and suddenly something magical appears.

In this case, a word.

We painted the five words
that we thought defined Brasilandia,

modifying the alleys.

This one is "Beauty",

"Strength",

"Love",

"Pride".

I'm not sure if you got
to see "Sweetness".

But the best thing of all was working
side by side with the neighbors

of those alleyways.

This can all be summarized
in an experience that we filmed

a 15-minute long documentary,
you can see it online.

It's called "Luz nas vielas"
and it was a very complete project for us,

because it brought
everything together,

we modified the public space
in order to link the location

with those words that represent
the mirror of Brasilandia,

and more importantly,

we got the neighbors to feel
proud of their streets,

because they had painted them,
they had cleaned and transformed them

into a colorful box
that they were proud of.

We always say
that we come back from these trips

with more than what we left there,
however much we paint.

The truth is, we come back
feeling more complete,

more full of light and full of strength
to keep fighting

in order to make the impossible possible.

Now, we wish to perform
urban art on a large scale.

We don't want to transform
a few alleys of a particular favela,

but the favela as a whole; a town, a city.

And improve the ties between the people
and the places where they live.

We chose a life that,
as we like to see it,

is like a roller coaster:

it's full of exciting moments,
vertigo, fast and furious slopes,

and slow and tough up-hill inclinations,

you feel you're never going to make it

because you don't have a steady income
or anything else to hold on to.

But as occurs in all roller coasters,

once you get down, you're shaking,
your hair stands on end,

and all you want to do
is ride on it again.

(Applause)