Gatra Collective will present its credentials with a ‘fashion film’ that will give value to Lanzarote
The artistic collective Gatra, with less than a year of life and with 22 active members, is doing a multidisciplinary work that will see the public light in brief dates where they intend to present the Lanzarote society their work through the ideas that have shaped them following his maxim of not being anyone’s competition but with the idea of joining forces.
This work, which brings together the audiovisual, design, photography, publishing and other fields of new art, is summarized in what the collective has wanted to call ‘fashion film’. Alejando Luzardo (ChicoNeura) explains that the idea came to his colleague Carlos Percas “because after making the documentary about rap and hip-hop in Lanzarote, we created merchandising of the collective, so it occurred to him that we made an audiovisual piece where we showed this work”.
When planning the work, Gatra found that the group is divided mainly into two aspects: the Lanzarote and the Madrid. The concept of the fashion film was summarized in “the idea of the Canary who lives in the Canary Islands and who, fed up with the limits of an island, decides to leave with the excuse of working or studying, and on the other hand, the canary that lives in great cities and feels the longing to return to their land. ” Here they find the contrast of ideas that they want to expose in the film. In one corner of the ring are the traditions, the dress and the iconic places of Lanzarote; and in the other are the lights, the revolution and the speed of Madrid.
Two jobs in parallel
Both the Lanzarote and Madrid work groups work at the same time, but independently. “For the realization of the project we have some basic guidelines that I frame within my work style, in the two locations each one adapts his style to these guidelines” says Toma Lipskyte, director of photography.
“As responsible for the direction of photography I have been in charge of looking for the locations for the plans that we are going to make”, explains Toma. The photographic part of the project consists of the sections. “Some study sessions to show the product itself, the second part is the making of photographs of the making-of and the third part focuses more on conceptual and experimental photography for a future exhibition”, say Toma. And Alejandro adds that “the film is the union of everything we are going to make, but it will be linked to these three ways of attacking photography that will end up in an exhibition in the room The Brain Surgery Room.
In spite of the two parallel paths of the project, there are members that cohabit in both paths. Iván Hernández will be in charge of making an editorial magazine with all the material. According to him it will be “a final product to frame all the work, it will be a way of explaining the whole process for anyone who goes to the exhibition or sees the film, it will be a product that lasts”.
In the work done in Lanzarote, the clothing made here will be valued. Moving away sentence: “the fashion film is a fashion campaign”. For the film, the artistic director Darío Machín designed 8 costumes and in all there is always an identifying feature of the Lanzarote tradition as sashes and even contemporary modifications to the dress of the Diabletes de Teguise.
The future
The collective saves the difficulty of working in the distance and without a fixed place where to pour the result as they can. They meet in houses, common places or in the room offered by the Asociación Artistas Unidos Titeroygatra. “Our intention is to have a self-managed physical space, but first we want to see how our first collective work goes forward, but what we do know is that we do not want to get involved with the institutions,” says Alejandro.
In Gatra they have a goal. “What we all seek is to show the youth and society of Lanzarote that in the artistic world everything can be created if you study, join forces and if you want it to take place.” From the collective they propose a message of encouragement “so that all those who have something to show, work and do it”.
“Our idea is not that Lanzarote has no limits, that it does, but limits can be skipped.” This is how Alejandro summarizes the legend of the Gatra Collective.
