Nemo: “Graffiti Writing as poetic path for an active and silent revolution”
Whether there are many women involved in urban art; whether street art should be activism and how it relates to the world of marketing we talked to an artist based in Barcelona, who works under the pseudonym Nemo.
Nemo
May 31, 2024
Natalia Rubina
CMO DOM Art Residence
DOM: Let’s start from the very beginning. Where are you from?
Nemo: I don't feel from anywhere, but it would be more exact to say that I feel from everywhere. Easily speaking, kind of a world citizen from Planet Earth, I never found the importance of defining my country identity. Actually the question could be based on what? Passport? Origins? What place I feel more belonging from? In which percentage? In what language I think or dream? True is that I've been living in Italy, in Spain, in UK, in France and other middle stays worldwide. Considering that the activity of painting takes a lot of place in my mental and my habits, the travels I do, usually, if they are not for work for few days, they are more long term stay. I need to belong from the place where I paint, to feel in some way protected and more comfortable. And this is crucial for me.
Nemo: I don't feel from anywhere, but it would be more exact to say that I feel from everywhere. Easily speaking, kind of a world citizen from Planet Earth, I never found the importance of defining my country identity. Actually the question could be based on what? Passport? Origins? What place I feel more belonging from? In which percentage? In what language I think or dream? True is that I've been living in Italy, in Spain, in UK, in France and other middle stays worldwide. Considering that the activity of painting takes a lot of place in my mental and my habits, the travels I do, usually, if they are not for work for few days, they are more long term stay. I need to belong from the place where I paint, to feel in some way protected and more comfortable. And this is crucial for me.
I started to do graffiti because I was in need of freedom and wanted to expand myself out of the box.
DOM: When you start to paint, it was from the beginning, the street art, or you start to paint like a classical artist?
Nemo: I started to draw a lot when I was a kid. I was keen to everything that was creative, thanks to my mother inputs, visiting museums and other cultural stuff around. I think in someway these activities were enriching me, also with things I didn't really liked, but surely tracing already the beginning of a passion. All the creative activities I was doing at the time were doors to escape and understand the world around me.
Basically I started to draw on paper, and than on the trousers and backpacks of my school friends and then on walls. I got closer and closer to real graffiti, so first of all I started to do tags, a lot of tags... and puppets, than letters. Things were evolving very fast. When I was 14 years old, I started to do it in the street without any permission. I was directly projected into the playground of the city. And since then, I really stick to this first primordial essence.
DOM: Why graffiti?
Nemo: I started to do graffiti because I was in need of freedom and wanted to expand my self out of the box. Box intended in its wider meaning.
I was influenced, for sure, from the pieces in Paris, when I was taking the train at Gare du Nord, Gare de L'Est... At the time the scene was already quite impressive. I was really young – six-seven years old. And than the same thing along the train trackside in Bologna, that is the city of reference for me in Italy. It was something I couldn't understand but I was attracted to. This gave me confidence and inspiration about what I could do outside. Sometimes I also felt a bit limited by this, as paradoxically the movement was governed by unwritten laws of conduct and style. Only with the time, shaping my identity, I could get free from this constraints.
In the 90s, when I started, Bologna was one of the an epicenter of the hiphop movement and of the underground movements in general, including tekno raves. So, Bologna was really like a big oven baking all this alternative cultural fermentation.
I was 14-15 and I was usually hanging out with people much older than me, most of them boys. And all this complex network and available alternative spaces was the gasoline that gave me motivation to carry on this practice, creating my own space in this one.
Nemo: I started to draw a lot when I was a kid. I was keen to everything that was creative, thanks to my mother inputs, visiting museums and other cultural stuff around. I think in someway these activities were enriching me, also with things I didn't really liked, but surely tracing already the beginning of a passion. All the creative activities I was doing at the time were doors to escape and understand the world around me.
Basically I started to draw on paper, and than on the trousers and backpacks of my school friends and then on walls. I got closer and closer to real graffiti, so first of all I started to do tags, a lot of tags... and puppets, than letters. Things were evolving very fast. When I was 14 years old, I started to do it in the street without any permission. I was directly projected into the playground of the city. And since then, I really stick to this first primordial essence.
DOM: Why graffiti?
Nemo: I started to do graffiti because I was in need of freedom and wanted to expand my self out of the box. Box intended in its wider meaning.
I was influenced, for sure, from the pieces in Paris, when I was taking the train at Gare du Nord, Gare de L'Est... At the time the scene was already quite impressive. I was really young – six-seven years old. And than the same thing along the train trackside in Bologna, that is the city of reference for me in Italy. It was something I couldn't understand but I was attracted to. This gave me confidence and inspiration about what I could do outside. Sometimes I also felt a bit limited by this, as paradoxically the movement was governed by unwritten laws of conduct and style. Only with the time, shaping my identity, I could get free from this constraints.
In the 90s, when I started, Bologna was one of the an epicenter of the hiphop movement and of the underground movements in general, including tekno raves. So, Bologna was really like a big oven baking all this alternative cultural fermentation.
I was 14-15 and I was usually hanging out with people much older than me, most of them boys. And all this complex network and available alternative spaces was the gasoline that gave me motivation to carry on this practice, creating my own space in this one.
DOM: What is the distinction between street art, urban art and graffiti? Or it is a synonyms?
Nemo: It's a big debate. I think everyone has its own definition. For me the term «street art» is more about commissioned artworks in the city, but more framed, thanks to organization, associations, thanks to social projects around neighborhoods or, more often, for commercial purposes. I see it as a way to add color to the city in a way that people enjoy. It's definitely more about entertainment.
Graffiti is more about the spontaneous side of urban art and it's a quite complex movement. The essence of it, is the street. Basically you don't have to ask to nobody if you can or not, you do it, and this creates a lot of confusion around how it should be, or should not be, around who can do it and who can't. Of course the public opinion usually is not really good about it for this reason, without noticing and fighting the real problems and much bigger issues in the urban context but also on a social systemic side. Why not to focus around the outrageous amount of money spent to convince you to buy things (all techniques included), the fetish for concrete, all the empty buildings left in ruins meanwhile people struggle for decent housing, the cancer of tourism that is eating all the cities... the list can carry on. Money before not only people, but everything else.
A lack of sensitivity, empathy and love makes the future of cities very uncertain, at least for what I feel.
I believe in the power of people and coming from the ground, graffiti writing is the counter answer of this societal discomfort, manifesting in its own way the freedom of existing despite all frictions. The spread of this culture is an important symptom that is actually defining and taking more and more space in our collective imagery and needs.
For the seek of clarity in an historical timeline, to define your question, graffiti writing is the mother of this new street art contemporary phenomenon, that truly disconnected from its origin.
DOM: Do you talk about some activism in your works?
Nemo: Yes, but not directly. I don't really like slogans and don't express my self on a first grade of analysis. i.e. I consider myself feminists, but I don't speak about feminism, my work speaks for me. If you check my path, you can observe different subjects of research experienced in a poetical dimension. It's more like an active silent revolution, you know? Just be. Facts remains that I feel free also to have direct messages, when I am in the need of them.
DOM: And which subjects also besides of feminism do you worried about?
Nemo: I am interested in deconstructing the status quo, I am attracted by the dynamics generated by mass production goods system and ecology in general. Since I was in London, in 2011, I started to use recycled paint. I carried on to paint more and more with rollers. The tag-roller became my main tool instead of spray cans, because of their toxicity.
I use the roller as a printing technique enhancing the tagnology, the technology around the art of tagging. The tools I wanted to use didn't exist in the shops, so I had to invent my own ones and build them. And this is like a kind of a declaration of independence from the market products . And, yes, for sure this is the start of my small revolution. After my personal needs, my desire is to show people that there are alternative ways of doing things.
Nemo: It's a big debate. I think everyone has its own definition. For me the term «street art» is more about commissioned artworks in the city, but more framed, thanks to organization, associations, thanks to social projects around neighborhoods or, more often, for commercial purposes. I see it as a way to add color to the city in a way that people enjoy. It's definitely more about entertainment.
Graffiti is more about the spontaneous side of urban art and it's a quite complex movement. The essence of it, is the street. Basically you don't have to ask to nobody if you can or not, you do it, and this creates a lot of confusion around how it should be, or should not be, around who can do it and who can't. Of course the public opinion usually is not really good about it for this reason, without noticing and fighting the real problems and much bigger issues in the urban context but also on a social systemic side. Why not to focus around the outrageous amount of money spent to convince you to buy things (all techniques included), the fetish for concrete, all the empty buildings left in ruins meanwhile people struggle for decent housing, the cancer of tourism that is eating all the cities... the list can carry on. Money before not only people, but everything else.
A lack of sensitivity, empathy and love makes the future of cities very uncertain, at least for what I feel.
I believe in the power of people and coming from the ground, graffiti writing is the counter answer of this societal discomfort, manifesting in its own way the freedom of existing despite all frictions. The spread of this culture is an important symptom that is actually defining and taking more and more space in our collective imagery and needs.
For the seek of clarity in an historical timeline, to define your question, graffiti writing is the mother of this new street art contemporary phenomenon, that truly disconnected from its origin.
DOM: Do you talk about some activism in your works?
Nemo: Yes, but not directly. I don't really like slogans and don't express my self on a first grade of analysis. i.e. I consider myself feminists, but I don't speak about feminism, my work speaks for me. If you check my path, you can observe different subjects of research experienced in a poetical dimension. It's more like an active silent revolution, you know? Just be. Facts remains that I feel free also to have direct messages, when I am in the need of them.
DOM: And which subjects also besides of feminism do you worried about?
Nemo: I am interested in deconstructing the status quo, I am attracted by the dynamics generated by mass production goods system and ecology in general. Since I was in London, in 2011, I started to use recycled paint. I carried on to paint more and more with rollers. The tag-roller became my main tool instead of spray cans, because of their toxicity.
I use the roller as a printing technique enhancing the tagnology, the technology around the art of tagging. The tools I wanted to use didn't exist in the shops, so I had to invent my own ones and build them. And this is like a kind of a declaration of independence from the market products . And, yes, for sure this is the start of my small revolution. After my personal needs, my desire is to show people that there are alternative ways of doing things.
I consider myself feminists, but I don't speak about feminism, my work speaks for me. If you check my path, you can observe different subjects of research experienced in a poetical dimension.It's more like an active silent revolution.
DOM: How do you earn the money? Do you do something else for living despite of the art?
Nemo: Of course, since the beginning till now I changed a lot of jobs and interests. But usually, I always prefer to keep my art practice separated from the work. I was working as animator CGI for some years, than another long period was to sell vintage clothing as an independent dealer. I worked in markets, in my showroom, for movie productions, for collectors... This work allowed me to rethink how we consume, the quality of materials, of manufactures and in opposition, how does work the fast fashion model.
But at the same time, especially the last years, I earn money with my art. I do projects that are interdisciplinary, implying more collaborative team work.
Nemo: Of course, since the beginning till now I changed a lot of jobs and interests. But usually, I always prefer to keep my art practice separated from the work. I was working as animator CGI for some years, than another long period was to sell vintage clothing as an independent dealer. I worked in markets, in my showroom, for movie productions, for collectors... This work allowed me to rethink how we consume, the quality of materials, of manufactures and in opposition, how does work the fast fashion model.
But at the same time, especially the last years, I earn money with my art. I do projects that are interdisciplinary, implying more collaborative team work.
DOM: Could you give me an example?
Nemo: I have been researching in to electricity in nature, and lately about microorganisms. I have built earth batteries to supply energy to musical instruments, creating my parallel maker dimension with sound and following my djing background. Always enjoying the city as a platform, I've been re imagining a way to lit up the streets through Microbial Fuel Cells thanks to electro active bacterias, in collaboration with a team of scientific researchers.
This made me realize the importance of the invisible part of everything we see, we live, we are. Starting from a phisical assumption of the invisibile that create the building blocks of the visible, I am slowly going toward metaphysical approach of the invisibility.
I briefly talked about it at Mambo last May. It's the museum of Modern Art of Bologna. During this symposium with Fabiola Naldi we have explored my art practice and the invisible spaces in the cities.
DOM: Do you use stencil or you paint freehand?
Nemo: I never used stencil. I like improvisation. So I plan my tool, sometimes I sketch, very often it happens that till when I put my roller on the wall, till the last second, I don't know where to go with my hand.
Nemo: I have been researching in to electricity in nature, and lately about microorganisms. I have built earth batteries to supply energy to musical instruments, creating my parallel maker dimension with sound and following my djing background. Always enjoying the city as a platform, I've been re imagining a way to lit up the streets through Microbial Fuel Cells thanks to electro active bacterias, in collaboration with a team of scientific researchers.
This made me realize the importance of the invisible part of everything we see, we live, we are. Starting from a phisical assumption of the invisibile that create the building blocks of the visible, I am slowly going toward metaphysical approach of the invisibility.
I briefly talked about it at Mambo last May. It's the museum of Modern Art of Bologna. During this symposium with Fabiola Naldi we have explored my art practice and the invisible spaces in the cities.
DOM: Do you use stencil or you paint freehand?
Nemo: I never used stencil. I like improvisation. So I plan my tool, sometimes I sketch, very often it happens that till when I put my roller on the wall, till the last second, I don't know where to go with my hand.
I am interesting in deconstructing the status quo, I am attracted by the dynamics generated by mass production goods system and ecology in general. Since I was in London, in 2011, I started to use recycled paint. I carried on the paint more and more with rollers. The tag-roller became my main tool instead of spray cans, because of their toxity.
DOM: Do you participate in any exhibitions?
Nemo: Now I am in a collective exhibition called Frontiera 40 at Mambo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna.
And yeah, I've been exhibiting different artworks in different places, from galleries to social centres, to museums...
I think the strongest thing an artist can do is to be organically multipurpose. Maybe its due to my humor variability and my extreme sensitivity to boredom. Different visual languages, different hybridization, different publics, different points of views and dialogues.
Of course my favorite platform is the street, there's no doubt about it. But some projects I cannot do them in the street for free. When there are technology or living organism implementation, you need some different work frame. And I also like to be presented in different ways, with different names. I need to satisfy all my different personalities in order to keep them calm and friendly.ojects I cannot do it in the street. When there is technology, you need some frame, different work frame. And I like to be presented in different ways.
DOM: How many girls are in the street art?
Nemo: Times are changing. I'm happy for that because of course, women gets more power and more of them move toward visibility. But at the beginning, when I started, I was kind of the only one. I have met girls along my path, but unfortunately there was not so much constancy on a long term activity. Actually now, after almost 30 years, I'm one of the few woman to carry on actively my practice in the graffiti movement. I feel blessed by the encounters I've had with those who tried to bring me down, especially men, as they have only strengthened my resolve to pursue my mission even more. The good and the bad shaped me as I am now.. and I am quite satisfied.
I feel to fully represent the movement as writer, as person, as woman... with some more optionals included.
Nemo: Now I am in a collective exhibition called Frontiera 40 at Mambo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna.
And yeah, I've been exhibiting different artworks in different places, from galleries to social centres, to museums...
I think the strongest thing an artist can do is to be organically multipurpose. Maybe its due to my humor variability and my extreme sensitivity to boredom. Different visual languages, different hybridization, different publics, different points of views and dialogues.
Of course my favorite platform is the street, there's no doubt about it. But some projects I cannot do them in the street for free. When there are technology or living organism implementation, you need some different work frame. And I also like to be presented in different ways, with different names. I need to satisfy all my different personalities in order to keep them calm and friendly.ojects I cannot do it in the street. When there is technology, you need some frame, different work frame. And I like to be presented in different ways.
DOM: How many girls are in the street art?
Nemo: Times are changing. I'm happy for that because of course, women gets more power and more of them move toward visibility. But at the beginning, when I started, I was kind of the only one. I have met girls along my path, but unfortunately there was not so much constancy on a long term activity. Actually now, after almost 30 years, I'm one of the few woman to carry on actively my practice in the graffiti movement. I feel blessed by the encounters I've had with those who tried to bring me down, especially men, as they have only strengthened my resolve to pursue my mission even more. The good and the bad shaped me as I am now.. and I am quite satisfied.
I feel to fully represent the movement as writer, as person, as woman... with some more optionals included.