street-fighter
irudia
There are some ideas which never get done, thoughts and actions and don’t say why but they end up in the drawer for things we’re never going to do. The story I’m going to tell you now has become a daily occurrence for me since the Spanish “gag law” was passed.

I’ve lived in Bilbao’s mythical San Francisco Street for the last fifteen years. In cultural and social terms, it’s the most varied, interesting part of the city and, at the same time, a marginalised area with the cheapest rents. On my walk from home to my studio, I saw something which we all had in common: mattresses.

Backings, walls, advert boards, newspapers, sheets, bunches of sighs, recipients for tears, storerooms for foul smells and so so... that’s what I used to see.

When that senseless law came out, I thought it was a step towards accepting not doing anything and, tying threads together, I started coming up with ways to use those backings to send ambiguous messages. I realised that they aren’t very long in the street and, because of that, I take photos of them and keep those lasting documents, which really make sense when you come across the whole collection.

I’ve taken almost all the texts from songs by a group called RRV, although films, tv shows, books and other types of texts are an influence too: Eskorbuto, Cicatriz, MCD, RIP and so on, and Doctor Deseo and El Columpio Asesino too.

They’re written in Spanish, Basque and English, although I stopped using the latter when a friendly Gypsy woman told me that she didn’t understand a word of it. So I started using just Spanish.

I chose fuchsia pink because I wanted to and, in that way, rubbish collectors, my accidental enemies, know who I am, they do their work and I try to do mine.

The ambiguity of the sentences chosen sometimes means that there are different possible interpretations, but the need to do all of this and the uncontrollable adrenaline level when I leave home hoping to find another mattress and right there, using my spray gun, tattoo on it the damned sentence I’ve spent the whole night thinking up.

SI NO TE GUSTA, TE JODES
QUEJARSE Y NO HACER NADA AMAR LA ESTUPIDEZ
SABES BIEN QUE AQUI PUEDES MORIR