Tabla de contenidos para Issue 4 en White Paper by - English

Gema López Gema López has been involved in the world of photography since she was a child, her father was already an advertising photographer and one can say that she was born and lived among cameras, negative film, and photography all her life. Having a father who teaches you from an early age is an added value when handling cameras and making it your profession. Her work is mainly focused on beauty, fashion, decoration, gourmet, etc., collaborating with both Spanish and international publications, including El País Semanal, Marie Claire, Gentleman, ELLE, etc., and brands such as L’Oreal, El Corte Inglés, etc. Rubén Vega Rubén Vega has worked as a photographer for many years and is a reference both in the fashion world and in his personal works of natural landscapes,…

We entered Nacho Duato’s house and already felt speechless. It is an incredibly neat house, filled above all with books. He has a lot of books, wherever you look. Stories, poetry, biographies, everything. A house full of art, paintings, and more paintings. Some of the very many paintings and drawings are done by him. Everything in the house exudes art and good taste, but at the same time it surrounds you with warmth. His house represents him. It is comfortable, it has light, and you cannot stop taking in culture at every corner, from the magnifying glass on the table of his studio to the shelves and walls. It is a beautiful house and, as always, in every conversation, he is overflowing with anecdotes, talks about books, jumping from one…

What are you working on now? Currently, I´m working on two TV broadcast projects and its development stage is just like Groundhog Day: it lasts much longer than you might expect. Simultaneously, I have also re-released a play called La Gran Depresión (The Great Depression) which I had already released ten years ago with Loles León and Bibiana Fernández but, this time, with Antonia Sanjuan and Nuria Roca. We have also started the tour. Plays are always performed outside Madrid first, and, in this case, we are on tour in the Canary Islands. Is the tour already over? Not at all. It has just started. The thing is that we directors must humbly take a step back at some point, so I only stayed with the team for the first…

We will see you in the coming months in La casa del caracol (The Snail’s House), which has not yet been released, and we have seen you in Offering to the Storm, which you released last year. Offering to the Storm was shot together with the second one, The Legacy of Bones, and we actually premiered it last year, and it went directly to the platform. I have also participated in two series: Veneno and Ana Tramel, which has not been released yet. In 2020 we had started some projects that had to be stopped until we were able to resume them in the summer. La casa del caracol, in fact, was the first shooting after the lockdown, and it went very well, there were no problems whatsoever. We had…

Are you currently working? Yes, I am. I am shooting the new episodes of Paco’s Men. It is a new era because the previous one had more than one hundred episodes, but these aren´t the next ones. It is about the characters’ lives 10 years later, with different situations. I´m excited to meet again the colleagues whom I was and continue to be happy to work with. Are they going to be the same actors? They are almost the same. Some of them are not, and I miss them; but there are also new incorporations such as Amparo Larrañaga, Amparo Sagasti, and actors with whom I am also enjoying a lot. Among the strong core of the series, we have Paco Tous, Neus Sanz, Carlos Santos, and I. The rest…

Ainoa Buitrago is a young singer-songwriter from Madrid. She started to play instruments like the guitar from a young age, and at 14 years old she started to write and compose her own music. Her journey began on YouTube, a platform where many artists uploaded videos of themselves singing and playing guitar. Later, she went on stage to perform concerts in small venues and uploaded some of her first’s hits on YouTube, such as “En tus ojos” and “Venecia está sin agua”, among others. In recent years, Ainoa has composed for other artists, while working on personal projects and entering the world of production. The first song she produced for herself was “Dinamarca” which is a sound journey, then we have “Dispárame”, produced by a known producer, Teddy Geiger. In…

“It is the institutions themselves that should ensure that artists move into other areas outside of the country, but it is not being done, it just is not happening.” What happened with your work and projects once we went on lockdown? It really did not affect me too much. Like many artists, I spend many hours, lots of time, and days on my own and homebound since my work as a painter requires solitude and concentration, and there comes a time and age where everything gets very introspective. There is a point in life where you might need to be more in touch with the outside world, but that is not the case for me anymore. It got hard just like it did for everyone else since it has been…

There are eyes that look, there are eyes that dream, there are eyes that call, there are eyes that wait- MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO…

How did Casa Florida (Flowered Home) come about? I inherited the business, in 1988 my mother was in charge of it, well, actually it was a house, a place to be. But after all this time under lockdown, if you are still at your home you have to transform and go to different rooms, which is a very interesting exercise that has happened to all of us because I have opted once again to preserve that place where one feels good. Flowers have always been a very important refuge for me and I want them to continue to be so, so I keep working on it. You did ballet, how did you end up here? I have been a professional dancer for many years and I ended up in this…

This designer from Barcelona amazes and enchants us with his creations. He says he was lucky to work for more than 15 years in multinational fashion companies. “Working for huge companies has helped me acquire perspective and knowledge in both processes and company management.” Positions such as International Trainer, Visual Merchandising Director, Collection Manager, or Image Director make up all that experience that helps him do what he does today. “I decided to interrupt my career and start studying fashion design, but I couldn’t finish it because school was too much for me, although I did gain some experience.” Four years ago, he decided to follow his heart and start his journey. He quit his job as Image Director and set up a fashion brand consultancy office. He would assist…

In 2015, Miguel Soler created a hand-crafted, sustainable guitar brand, and in 2020 Javier Bona joined as partner. How did you decide that you wanted to make guitars for a living? Miguel: Guitars have followed me all my life since I was a child. I always had a strong devotion to this instrument. Like most people that like guitars, I began with a small guitar collection: classic, electronic, acoustic, archtop (Jazz guitar). There came a time when I was looking for a classic guitar to purchase and I realized that they followed the same pattern or canon as always (that is why they are considered classic) the same wood as the Palo Santo, the gold pegbox topped with lyres, very embellished rosettes, and very well carved shovels. Wonderful works in…

How is the pandemic unfolding in a theatre house such as the Teatro Real? In June 2020, we decided to reopen to the public, implementing all safety measures required by the health sector. Therefore, on July 1 La Traviata was very successfully performed, and the new season could start in September. This decision has proven to be the right one and today Teatro Real has become an international reference. The Cultural Barometer of the Fundación Contemporánea ranks it as the third cultural institution in Spain, following the Prado Museum and the Reina Sofía Museum. And it is also the leading institution regarding performing and musical arts by far. What are the measures taken for the performances when it comes to choirs or a lot of actors on stage such as…

“Unfortunately, in this country culture is not a basic necessity. It’s sad, but it’s the society we live in and it’s the country we live in.” What are you doing or what are you going to do now? This Monday I start shooting Historias para no dormir (Stories to Keep You Awake), a tribute to Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, for Spanish National Television, after many months of not working and with a lot of enthusiasm. Each chapter is by a different director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Paco Plaza or Rodrigo Cortés, with whom I start a three-week, almost nocturnal shooting, together with Raúl Arévalo and Eduard Fernández. In addition, I’m returning to Prostitution, which is back in Madrid, with Carmen Machi and Carolina Yuste, and then I’ll return to the second part of…

What are you doing now? I’m preparing two films that I’m going to shoot as an actor, one specifically in April, and I’m also writing a script for a fiction film. I want to tell stories, either in front of or behind the camera. I want to be at the service of what I’m most passionate about, which is storytelling. ¿And 2020? It’s been a good year to reflect, to stop, to think, to write, to reorganize. It has been an interesting year for me where I have also recovered psychically, physically, and mentally after all the promotion of the film Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle. Many international festivals, a lot of demand from all the festivals that wanted me to go with my mother: Latin America,…

What projects are you working on right now? Well, now I am working with Podimo on a podcast called Tú no me conoces (You Don’t Know Me). A podcast dedicated to teenagers, about teenagers, and from the point of view of teenagers. We do not know anything about them, and I believe this will give them a platform to talk about topics with a lot of substance between other teenagers and their parents. We want to know what is going on in their minds because it is a stage of impenetrability and their parents do not know how to tackle it, we take it personally. There are some episodes about sex, addiction, ecology, identity, and many more. Do they take part in it? Yes, yes. We did it via Zoom,…

“Ultimately, the elderly have been the biggest victims. I don’t know if you can say they have been mistreated, but they are the most forgotten and the most harmed. It hurts me. When I heard the figures, everything fell apart, it was a feeling of helplessness...” You are now with the promotion of Libertad (Freedom), which on the one hand is a series for Movistar and on the other, a movie... Oh yes, I can’t wait for it to come out. It’s something very exciting, even for us, when we talk about it, because I’ve only seen the series, a screening of the five episodes that we did in October for the team in a cinema, well, in turns, you know that now... I’m curious... Is the film taken from…

You spent many years at Loewe in the culture and exhibitions area. Tell me about it. Yes, I spent 14 years at Loewe, I did a little bit of everything, handling the international press, then with Stuart Vevers I got a little bit into fashion production, and I also ended up doing creative direction for some communication projects for the house by chance, and with Stuart Vevers I got into the cultural world. I started taking photographs with PhotoEspaña, collaborating with artists to design silk and window displays, etc. The truth is that I was very lucky, because when Jonathan Anderson arrived he thought that the brand was based on three pillars, one was fashion, another was craftsmanship and another was culture. So I stopped doing fashion productions and art…

Licensed in Art History at the Complutense University of Madrid. She studied Decorative Arts of the 19th and 20th Century at Sotheby’s London. She has worked as a journalist since 1989, specializing in design and related topics such as fashion, architecture, interior design, and art. She collaborates with several media, from interior design and design magazines to newspapers’ cultural supplements, national and international. In 2009 she was awarded the Premio San Jordi a la Mejor Pluma del Diseño (St Jordi Award for the Best Design Quill). She’s written texts for the catalogues of designers such as Rolf Sachs, Gaetano Pesce, Gunjan Gupta, Álvaro Catalán de Ocón, Michael Anastassiades, Fredrikson/Stallard, Antón Álvarez, Giulio Ridolfo, the Mediterranean colors and for La Sillipedia (Andreu World). She’s written the books of decorators Luis Bustamante…

How did you get started in the hotel business? We have always wanted to do something with hotels, hospitality, a special project, different, because we thought that the hotels that existed, which are great, did not meet the characteristics that we wanted to convey, like feeling at home rather than being in a hotel, being a guest in the typical gorgeous house of your friend where you would want to stay all summer and more than a weekend, where everything is taken care of and everything is there for a reason. We wanted to be special, to feel like home, to be in contact with a series of people and a series of plans, that if you had not been invited by Cristine Bedfor, you would not have access to…

Taller Piccolo is composed of Francisco Crescini and Ángela González, a couple of architects dedicated to the design and artisan construction of furniture, bags and other objects. Fran considers himself a builder of things by nature. Ángela is observant and meticulous in her approach. Together in their workshop in Málaga, they carefully produce durable, functional products that offer an alternative option for the conscientious consumer. Taller Piccolo creations are designed to foster a conscious and responsible connection between them and the user. They are produced with an ever present mindfulness on our consumption in society. Their creations are those special kinds of pieces that anyone would love to call their own and have the power to turn a house into a home. Objects built within them their creator’s understanding and…

This is me: three years old, short hair, itchy woolen leotards, colorful sweater, and a tweed coat two sizes too big. I’m going to the movies with my parents. There is only darkness. They buy me some lemon-flavored Darlins sweets. The show is starting. Pinocchio. Suddenly, my parents don’t exist anymore, nor the darkness, nor the itchy woolen leotards. Nothing exists anymore but a grandfather who feels alone and creates a fictional grandson who lies. Then a whale comes and eats Pinnochio. I start screaming no, no, no don’t eat him! Everyone shushes me. My parents try to quiet me down too but to no avail, I scream so much that the usher, who already knows us, asks my parents to take me outside but I refuse, and now I’m…

What are you working on now? I am finishing shooting the second season of Herederos de la tierra (Those That Inherit the Earth) and I am also busy with the promo tour for films like La Vampira del Raval (The Barcelona Vampiress), which I have been nominated for a Gaudi award. I am also eager for the premiere of Mia & Moi, a film by Borja de la Vega coming this spring. Due to the pandemic, La estrella azul (The Blue Star) is still pending, a movie by Javier Macipe, but it will resume shooting in autumn. When everything stopped, I had no work, but then everything started back up in September with a half-German film. Theatre also helped me a lot during this strange year of 2020. I was…

In 2020 you premiere Isabel Coixet’s film It Snows in Benidorm. Tell me what you are doing now. Besides that, I am shooting the series Madres. Amor y vida (Mothers: Love and Life), the last season, which will be continued, and I don’t know how my plot develops in the third season, so, I don’t know, it has no continuity. There is also On Death Row: The Pablo Ibar Story directed by Carlos Marqués-Marcet, La Fortuna by Amenábar, and Rifkin’s Festival by Woody Allen. What about new projects? In May I’m starting a British series called The English with Emily Blunt. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s being filmed in Spain, at least my part of it, which has to do with the first English people who came to…

How has your education influenced your work? My father belongs to a generation of architects who were trained at ETSAB under the auspices of the R group, at a time when the imminent end of the dictatorship invited the reconstruction of all institutions, universities, schools, publishing houses (Tusquets, Anagrama, Edicions 62 or Quaderns Crema), or those promoting and publishing design such as ADI/FAD or BD. My mother trained at Elisava and founded a small interior design studio with some colleagues while collaborating with Miguel Milá. At that time the word design encompassed a whole series of confusing disciplines that mixed interior design, graphics, art, and product, with a political claim and an aesthetic and social reinvention, largely led by the Gauche Divine (the bourgeois left) of the Boccacio, the Flash…

“During 2020 and now in 2021, images of hugs, of people on the street giving each other hugs that I hadn’t seen given in that way, deeper hugs.” How has your industry changed this year? To tell you the truth, it hasn’t stayed the same. What we used to do before was to do events in which to present the brand and sell affected all the senses, not only the staging of the jewelry but what was breathed, heard, eaten, and so on. A massive day, like a party, which has now become exhibitions that last longer and where you can treat people one by one, so, for me, there is a much richer part in interacting with people who are interested in knowing the universe of “To be continued”,…

You’ve been in the profession for 15 years. How has fashion changed over the years? Like nobody could have imagined. It has taken a 180-degree turn. The usual distribution systems, with their agents and international fairs, the calendars with their fashion weeks, all of a sudden, everything has become obsolete. We had the feeling that everything was a piece of heavy machinery, difficult to change, but you let yourself go because there was no other way. The pandemic has brought real change. A strange way of feeling liberated from the rhythm of fashion and what it represents. The way of selling, the great consumption of fashion, fast fashion. Do you think all this has changed this year in the collective consciousness? I want to believe so. Although there is still…

What projects are you working on right now? María: We are building a lot, we are visiting more than five sites a week, traveling more than five hundred miles. There are projects that are currently being built now though we have had them for three years. We are also researching designs that are closely linked to new ways of living, apartments that have been specifically designed for childless couples. We are transforming many outdated, urban buildings and shared apartments into a new way of living. There is a new, easier way of investing and it is closely linked to this new way of working. It is a result of sponsored trials in various cities in Spain both in public and private constructions. Victor. For example, in Malaga, we are working…

Can Ferrereta is a hotel located in a village called Santanyí, on Majorca’s southeastern coast. It will open its doors for the general public for the first time next April. The project has been conceived by the Soldevila-Ferrer family, who also owns San Francesc Hotel in Palma. They’ve meticulously restored a building from the 17th century and transformed it into a marvelous hotel surrounded by green gardens. Their intention is for the hotel to remind its hosts of a summer home, full of natural lightning, textures, and smells that blur the limits between interior and exterior life. The hotel will have facilities such as the Mediterranean restaurant OCRE, the bar, and restaurant called LA FRESCA, next to the swimming pool. There will laso be the spa SA CALMA with a…

BULIDEIRA KEEPS THE TRADITIONAL GALICIAN COSTUME ALIVE Dengues, traditional knickers, bodices, breeches, sashes and the other components of the Galician traditional costume were the focus, some time ago, of fairs and markets that are almost extinct now. Even though the traditional costume stopped being elaborated in Galicia around 1920, the Galician attire has increased its value as a historic piece and as an essential element in rural festivities. The Asociación do Traxe Galego (Galician Costume Association) has been organizing for 36 years, during the Apostle’s Holidays, the “praise to Galician traditional costume meeting.” Many of the region’s inhabitants take out their outfits, which must be designed with old sketches from every region if they intend to be realistic reproductions. It is ultimately a parade that seeks to praise this clothing,…