Art Activist Julien Charlon – The MAP Interview

mundolavapiés

Photographer and “collaborative art
project organiser” extraordinaire, Julien Charlon, is at it again! After the publication of his successful book
of photography last year, Mundolavapiés, he is fiendishly organising an even
more ambitious project. In 2008, Charlon
will host a neighbourhood-wide, live-action event similar to the board game,
Clue. This work, called “Project 58”,
will host a lot of violence and bloodshed, but… only in the most entertaining
way possible. Where does Julien stand on art, activism, violence and the pursuit of neighbourhoods without
Starbucks? Michael Beeson finds out!

I was scarred as an arts student
in Paris – my
horrific experiences made me instinctively cringe at the sight of an artist or
at the sound of artistic jargon. I swear, if I hear the word “sfumato” one more
time I’ll break the speaker’s fingers (and probably call it performance art
which challenges entrenched social values, and try to get government funding
for further “finger breaking”).

So it was a skeptical interviewer
who entered the Casa Encendida, an art and technology centre where photographer,
Julian Charlon, teaches black-and-white photo developing. Armed with my
hard-earned experience, I was all set to grapple with that volatile paradox – a
person with a massive ego but an inferiority complex (artist n.).

Though even before meeting the man I
was a little confused by the artist’s latest book, “Mundolavapiés”, which is a
collection of his photographs accompanied by quotes, poems and essays by the
denizens of Lavapiés, Madrid’s funkiest neighbourhood. The book is neon pink, and if
you take the time to decipher the blurb (which is in Spanish), when you look up
the whole world looks green. There’s a scientific reason for this, but that
doesn’t make it less fun. Anyway, the strange thing about this book is that the
artist’s name is not on the cover. All you see is “Mundo Lavapiés. Libro DVD
participativo”.

No prizes for whoever can guess what
“participativo” means. It’s the theme throughout the book, and throughout the
interview. When I meet him he’s charming, friendly, and most surprisingly,
humble. His book seems to focus not so much on the art as on the people who
participated, and on the neighbourhood it paints such an in-depth portrait of. His
name can only be found inside the book with the small caption “Fotografias
Julien Charlon”. This is weird. Is he actually an artist? I decide to challenge
him.

“So,
are you a photographer, or something else?”

“Well, I’m starting to realise that,
well, I am a photographer, but less and less. I’m more an editor, an organiser
of projects. I do a bit of everything – I set up the project, I get the idea
going of a participative project…” he thinks for a second “…and I’m also a
photographer.”

Originally
from Avignon in France,
Julien moved to Madrid
six years ago to see big city life, and to learn a new language, and he coyly
alludes to a love story. It’s all terribly romantic. Ever since, he has been an
active member of the Lavapiés community, starting out in the now famous but
defunct squat, “Labo 3”.

“I
get the impression you fell in love with Lavapiés” I say.

“Yeah…
yeah, well it’s my neighbourhood. Maybe I would have done the same with Chueca,
or somewhere else. I wanted to make a
book about my neighbourhood, because I recognised things in it which used to be
in my town fifteen years ago, but disappeared bit by bit, so I wanted to make a
record of this area now, while it is transforming.”

“At
the beginning I wanted to work on the project on my own, but then I had the idea of
making it a participatory project, because it’s a complex neighbourhood, so
with older people, children, newcomers, and immigrants, together
we could paint a real portrait of the area.”

“So
what exactly is Mundolavapiés?”
I ask.

“I’m
not entirely sure what it is- at the moment it’s the title of this book, but
also it might become a magazine, and the website is part of it.”

“Now,
on the site I can see you’ve started a new project involving murder.” I say,
referring to Charlon’s next big venture, Project 58. “What is this about?”

“I
couldn’t do Project 58 in a neighbourhood I didn’t know. I think it works well
after having done Mundolavapiés. It’s very different, but also not so different
- it also involves the participation of people from the neighbourhood [...] The
people themselves will form the story.

“Is
there a political side to this project?”

“Yeah…
it could also be an opportunity to er… so that there isn’t any
misunderstanding. Because often on TV there are big heroes that kill loads of
people, who are never punished – they are in fact heroes, despite being
extremely violent. So we’ll use violence as a tool, but we’ll try to send a message
about what we think… but subtly, there won’t be a heavy-handed morality tale.
It’s a game, with a lot of humour, with maybe a message attached.”

This
seems to be the main theme here. Community over art and politics. Mundolavapiés
contains political themes such as immigration, crime and gentrification, but
its biggest pull is the community spirit it inspires. Project 58 isn’t really
an anti-violence protest so much as a community activity, a source of
entertainment that isn’t sponsored by a multi-national company.

“It
(sponsorship) is so boring. You go into a big exhibition, and you’re confronted
with a huge logo. It’s what I like about Lavapiés, you don’t see brands, there
isn’t a Zara, a Corte Ingles, a Starbucks [...]. It gives the neighbourhood its
own personality. Here
[in Spain]
culture is monopolised by big institutions, and there isn’t much space for
small collectives.”

And
the book isn’t a showcase for the artist’s ego.

“I
think art as personal expression has been done time and time again. Now I want
to work more on participative work, which is done far too little. Artists are
too egocentric, too focused on their work; they don’t want to share it. I
think great things could be done. This worked perfectly – using no money, we
created something without incurring a loss.”

Ah,
this is the bit I’m interested in. Being a slave to the Western World’s
capitalist system, I grill him on how on Earth he financed a book crammed with
colour prints and which includes a DVD to boot, without a sponsor. Apparently,
a large part of the solution has to do with postcards.

“It
was an accident whilst working on Mundolavapiés. To finance the book – we
started two and a half years ago with no money – I created six postcards, and
in one weekend, in Lavapiés , 1000 postcards were sold. In the end, I continued
selling them [...] and I tried to develop this idea throughout Madrid. There were many
business owners in the quarter who sold the postcards without making any profit, so
that’s 100% profits for us.”

There
was also one particularly generous patron.

“He
said ‘Oh, you’re the guy of Mundolavapiés, come tomorrow for a coffee’. So I went,
and he gave me 300 euros! You also have to take into account all the people who
helped us. If we’d paid everybody who contributed to the book, the texts, the
people who helped with the website, the project would have been impossible

“After
about a month and a half we’d broken even with the book, and any profits we
make now will go into the next project.”

All
in all, Julian feels the book was a success. I ask him why the project worked.

“Because
it isn’t one guy who made a book about a neighbourhood. It’s people who made a
book together.

“It
gave me a lot more confidence in my work. It’s a social project, an artistic
project. it’s political, poetic – it’s many things. I like the idea of work
that involves many different ideas and art forms, and has many participants.”

“On
one page you’ll have a political text, and on the next a rap written by an
eight-year-old kid who’s really fun [...] It gives it all more value because
you get the full picture. It all came together without a plan but worked
nonetheless”

Since
the book’s publication, many collectives have formed in Lavapiés. It seems to have genuinely sparked debate in the
neighbourhood, and beyond; it has inspired a forthcoming book about a market
place in Uruguay, and
apparently someone wants to do a similar project for the Bronx.

It
seems Charlon’s projects are a new, more exciting form of art which does away
with the artist’s ego and corporate influence. Maybe it’s a response to modern
society’s loss of community spirit, or simply a desire to connect people in a
way detached from the pursuit of profit. Oh, and the photographs are nice too
(I’m not going to talk about ‘artistic eye’ or ‘composition’ because otherwise
I’ll have to break my own fingers).

If
you wish to buy the book, it’s available in the Casa Encendida, in the modern
art museum Renia Sofia, and in the Libreria Lavapiés. If you want to get
involved in, or are just curious about, Project 58, go to the website .

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