Oneweekoff Episode 2 - Barcelona
In today's episode, I am drowning Meet some interesting guys and realize I have to stay at home for a long long time. The reason I started doing this. Because I'm in love with Barcelona. Each year the city is getting worse. Everybody knows someone that has been robbed. The government. They don't do anything. What should we do? Being like this without doing anything? We have to move. First, what we do is watch their movements because sometimes that we just catch them when they were robbing someone.
One comes out here in the elevator with a black backpack. Most of them is because we already know them. They do make a lot of money. Some of them have Mercedes. Do you have a Mercedes? Now they said, they are going to work to change the law. These people steal one day and another day and nothing happens to them.
There is a small knife there. What is going to happen right now, the police is going to come going to ask for his ID... going to take his details and afterwards he is once again on the streets doing the same: robbing. My name is Jimi and I am from artspace tours here in Barcelona. And yeah I met Sebastian and we got on like a house and fire, so I want to talk to you about what we do.
I am Ada Totolan I am a dancer, ex puppeteer, ex nomad. We offer art-based experiences in Barcelona. Our mission is to inspire people. So people can understand that this is not a God-given talent that people get. I met one person, who told me: “Why are you wasting your time with all this rubbish like just don't you see the you are a dancer, you're supposed to move your supposed to do things.” And I was like, I cannot dance like I am not gonna dance because in order to be a dancer you have to start it from, I don't know, when you're five years old. I was 27.
You want to create, you are able to create. And the best example I can think of right now, is here, in front, of these artists, a group of artists called “Me lata” who painted cans, painted beautiful messages so they could read it and they could read each other's messages and leave each other's love in the streets. But painting cans is not a genius moment, anybody can paint a can. But you didn't. They did. One morning, my friend woke up, had a coffee and died of a heart attack.
And from that moment it struck me so deeply, that I said from this moment I am going to do only what I want. I forget about all the pressure off the society and what other people think that would be right do. This fella here is probably Barcelona's most prolific artist. His name is Konair. Konair has been drawing the popsicle with the bite taken out of it since he is 14 years of age.
The whole point of Konair he says, is the bite represents scars, represents our lives. We all have scars physically, mentally, or both, but we have them, and this is teaching us to learn to appreciate the scars and learn how to live with these scars as well. But he also says that life is melting and you have two options.
When it comes to life, like an ice cream you either hold the ice cream it melts all over your hands and you don't even eat the ice cream, but it goes. Or you could eat ice cream all in one go and have a great time doing it, You head may hurt after a while, but you've enjoyed the ice cream I started practicing from the next day three hours a day every day, everyday practicing hardcore training, and I put together this kind off style inspired from the American tribal style and tribal fusion. Which I personally call it for myself fusion belly dance.
We talked a little bit of an example of this guy. His name is Santo and Santo is from a place called Montserrat, very very beautiful, but he makes his paint himself, makes with a pigment and he makes it from the earth and the ground. When he explained this to me, he said: “Jimi I love doing this work because listen this is me. This is me on a canvas, this is my soul, this is my body. This is the earth I grew up in and I can put on a canvas because I've been training and studying it alone, well it's something that I think only I do. But then he dragged me to the side and said I need to tell you the truth.
I paint like this because my girlfriend is a great painter, my friends a great painters and all I ever wanted to do was to be a painter. He was frustrated. This is what he does, I am not sure how true that is. He told me this while he was wearing a dinosaur onesie and he was growling at people everywhere, so, he's is an interesting chap for sure.
But we're talking about the struggle the artist go through. Not all artists like their work. Some artists look at it and they will never be able to accept it when we all love it and it's universally loved.
But that artists goes just somersaults in the head to be able to accept there are to be able to accept that talent and sometimes they never do. Right. So not all of these great artists, these great musicians, great painters, great songwriters, dancers, they’re not all happy with what they have, right. They not all accepting these incredible skills that they have worked their whole entire life score.
They struggle to also accept this as well. So, if your are out there and you struggling to accept your art, you are struggling to accept you, then, hey, everybody goes through that and you definitely shouldn't. So yeah. If I can give you that bit of advice, I guess my job is done. Cool. It can become tempting to give it up, if people don't support you. That, it's easy when people tell you that well, this is this is a philosophy, this is a poem in your head, this is hippie stuff, but the real life… No, there are many really lives and there are many realities and you have your own and you have to believe in it Don't let other people bring you down, but again this is a classic no everybody says this, don't let the people don't let yourself convince of other people telling you. No. I also don't believe that you have to do it in order,
in spite of the people, like to do something in order to prove yourself to other people, with people that tell you no and you go like: “No no, I'm going to do it anyway, and I'm going to show you and you gonna… No, do it for yourself. Do it every day. People who make it, they go through that point where other people would have give up. It’s a test on your way. If you give up, then don't really deserve it. Alone and drunk, I want to get home.
I'm Frida. I am from Sweden. I am 25 years old and I live here for 6 and a half years. Yeah I'm studying to become a paramedic. I'm Michelle Berghäll from Stockholm, Sweden. I'm a part of animal reality exposed, and we are a group of people that we want to expose how the animals are living and how they are dying in the industry's that we have today.
I want to save lives. I love action. I could never work in the office job. Too boring. I used to grow up on a farm. I was studying agriculture, had been working with horses my whole life, and like seven years ago, I decided to leave all of that. I had a really easy childhood and really hard childhood. Like I have a amazing family, amazing parents, amazing siblings, I was always very loved, grew up in a good area in Sweden, you know.
But I always felt that I did not fit in. I had a well-paid job. I lived a great life. I mean all the money I got. I was traveling, and I bought my clothes, my things. And right where I am now I survive on money from patrons. People who support what I do, so. So I get like $300 a month to survive on, but for me it's more important to do what I want to do and right now, it's not like I love to do this, but I feel it has to be done because it so important.
So I choose to live a very more like basic life than having a lot of money that I can… I would for sure love to go back to what I did and to travel, but right now, I feel like I have to do it. I slipped into depression and even self-harm and in the end suicide attempts when I was really young. Seven years ago, my father died and the same week, a very intense relationship ended.
I was devastated and I spent two months on my mom's couch and I kind of got into all of these videos with animal cruelty and how they were treated, and I was just like this is so wrong I always felt that I wanted to do something for the people who were like me and I wanted to help in in the moment. So, I became vegan and then I started to go on protests and show what I thought about that issue, and then I realized it has to be more that can be done. So, I became one of those persons that is like putting videos out there, that I watched to when I became vegan. There was a woman that I got in contact with when I was working in the hospital and she had a terrible background story and she used to be a heroin addict and she tried to jump off a balcony to finish her life and she survived and was paralyzed from the neck down and then she also had all the hepatitis and HIV. So I got, you know, the wonderful experience and pleasure to get to know this woman and she was so nice and so positive on throughout everything.
But she also made me realize that I never want to work or have that kind of relationship with a patient or a victim ever again, because this was 10 years ago or more, and I still think about her over the time and that's why I could not work in the hospital. I would love to work with kids and I just I just couldn't do that, I just couldn't make that kind of relationship with someone again. And so that's why paramedic, you fix someone up the best you can. You give, you know, the first treatment, you do your absolute best, but then you have to try and move on, because if not I think that emotional pain would be too much for me. I would love that the people who are supporting the industry. I would love them to come with me to see how the animals are being treated, how they live, and how they are being killed.
Or at least watch the material we put out there, because I think it's everyone's responsibility to see what they are contributing to. Having to have go through the things I went through everything from you know suicide attempt to eating disorders. to all of this bullying feeling left out, feeling empty. I'm trying to use that now as my main strength because I know, I know, it's not gonna disappear.
It's always be a part of me and I'm choosing to use it as my strength and using my experience. I need to take care of people I have been trying my whole life to find my passion and to find what I love to do and I've gone through every single hobby in the book. I’ve done painting, I am singing, I tried every sport in the world and I keep coming back to this main point. And this is that I am carer, I need to take care of people and to take care of other people is what makes me really happy and yes, I guess that's what my passion is and to be able to kind of see some sort of positivity from all the stuff I had to go through throughout so many years, when I felt so bad, has now turned into something that I'm able to use to do something good. You’re so cute. I can stand it. Oh my god.
You will find your calling and your your thing in life and there is a saying that no one does a good act without being selfish and that's kind of true in a away. You know the reason why I want to do this is because I love helping people, but why do I love helping people, because it makes me feel good in a away. So it is kind of a horrible thing to say but that's how the humans work and if you can use your pain and your miserableness, to put that into art, put that into writing, put that into helping others in the same situation and yeah just keep going. Or “Sigue Adelante”. That means? Keep on going forward, keep swimming. Time to say goodbye. Do you remember Barry from last episode, the guy, who wrote the song?
Well, let's listen to it. (Sound track)
2021-02-18 18:53
