The Impossible Project - Barcelona

A little something I've just written for Shopikon about the opening of a marvellous new photography shop in Born, Barcelona. (This version is unedited - some parts have been changed since publication).

Suitably nestled in the elegant yet hip Born district and barely a block from the city’s Photographic archive, The Impossible Project threw open its doors in December 2011, with other shops already enjoying cult status in Berlin, Vienna and New York. The managers of this branch, Isabel and Jorge, also own Chandal - the Raval-based home of kitsch photography paraphernalia - so are perfectly positioned to understand the venture that has led to a cult renaissance in Instant Photography.

The Impossible Project began in 2008 with Polaroid’s announcement that production would be ceased at its Netherlands-based factory, in the (mistaken) belief that there was simply no space for them as our world shifted towards a digital future. Panic swept through the Polaroid community in the realisation that over 300 million cameras were destined to become nothing more than unusable and obsolete relics from the dusty past of our analog ancestors.

Thank heavens that the factory manager André Bosman and Austrian entrepreneur Florian Kaps saw the potential for a solution to enable the survival of tangible instant film. Looking to mirror Polaroid’s passion for creativity yet going far beyond in terms of innovation, The Impossible Project was born with a mission to produce pioneering chemical formulas, pushing fresh instant film onto the market for its hungry underground following. The shop is a haven of retro photography with its feet firmly in the twenty-first century, housing a gallery for new talent, original Polaroid cameras and of course, fresh cassettes of Impossible Project-made film. The rest is instant history.

See published article here

Text © Natasha Drewnicki 2011.
Photography © Shopikon. All Rights Reserved.

A visit to El Ingenio

This piece was published on shopikon.com.

El Ingenio

Tucked away in the heart of the gothic quarter just a stone’s throw from La Rambla, El Ingenio has been trading festival-related goods for the people of Catalunya since 1838. Beyond the cacophony of puppets, poi, gargantuan festival heads, Carnaval masks and joke-shop paraphernalia lies a family-business spanning generations, with a passion for tradition and the timeless art of entertainment. 

Rosa Cardona is part of this lineage and the driving force behind the wall-to-wall artisan products that continue to be crafted by hand in a hidden workshop at the back of the premises. “We have seen generations pass through these doors: children come for toys and years later return with their own children. There is a lovely atmosphere in the shop because people come to enjoy themselves, to find a piece of nostalgia... it’s as simple as that.” Over the years, the family has counted the likes of Salvador Dalí and the Cirque du Soleil as clients and the Catalan artist Joan Brossa found inspiration in El Ingenio, famously calling it “poesía visual,” visual poetry. It is easy to see why. There is an undeniably magical presence about El Ingenio that even the most hardened adult would find difficult not to feel.

C/Rauric 6, Barcelona

Brangulí was here - CCCB

This exhibition has already passed now, but I thought I'd add it anyway. It was really beautiful.

Brangulí. Barcelona 1909-1945 

7th June – 23rd October


Josep Brangulí (1879 – 1945) accompanied Catalunya throughout monumental socio-political changes during the first half of the twentieth century. During his impressive career as a documentary photographer, Brangulí gave equal weight to the ordinary and everyday as he did to significant historical events.


To photography buffs, he is comparable to the likes of Robert Doisneau and Henri-Cartier Bresson, French humanist photographers who enchanted us with their candid, inky black and white images of street-life. They brought us the decisive moment, the notion of capturing a split second in time through the lens – immortalising that moment forever, as if by an act of alchemy. 


Brangulí’s sensitivity towards his subjects bring us official portraits in formal environments; factory workers pause to stare into the lens, seamstresses work alongside their newborn babies and endless rows of school children study obediently at their desks. 


The timeless black and white images also offer us a powerful insight into an altogether mysterious Barcelona that would otherwise be unknown to us; of now-extinct Gitano neighbourhoods and celebrations-no-more, of lantern-lit watering holes staffed by elegant, be-suited waters; of primitive fire-engines, mummified nuns perched upright outside churches, Fascist marches and Nazi propaganda, of thick, black pools of blood in dark alleys and faded smudges of figures that almost eluded the camera’s immortal gaze completely.

The curators selected a mere three hundred photos from the archive of over a million images for the exhibition and created thematic blocks to make better sense of the broad areas of society, industry and politics that Brangulí covered. The exhibition runs until 23rd October and is a testament to the critical changes of Barcelona not to be missed.


- CCCB Contemporary Art Museum website

C/ MONTALEGRE, 5
08001 Barcelona

Beefeater in-Edit 2011

The Beefeater In-Edit festival returns to Barcelona this November with a varied selection of musical heavyweights in the arena for its ninth edition. Setting the tone for the opening ceremony will be no less than the creator of the Music Documentary genre himself - Michael Nyman.

Showcasing his most recent, unfinished work, Michael Nyman In Progress, the attention of the camera is refreshingly reversed for a study of filmmaker as artist behind the show-reel, encouraging the audience to consider the exceptional skill required by directors to create films for this genre. Showing an unfinished piece on the silver screen also highlights the nature of film as a tangible, progressive work and an art-form that takes considerable time to master.

Among Nyman will be other documentaries exploring the accomplished lives of world-famous musicians from David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan and Kings of Leon to Toots and the Maytals, Queen and Leonard Cohen.

"First and foremost,” comments the Artistic Director of the festival, Luis Hidalgo, “we give importance to the way the stories are interpreted as opposed to star value of the artist.” Perhaps that is why one film by musician-turned-director Ray Davies failed to meet the rigorous quality requirements this year, in spite of the fact that it would have easily filled cinema seats.

There is undoubtedly something for everyone here, with this year’s festival also boasting 45 talented newcomers into the realm of the music documentary genre. There is certainly an impressive roster of fresh perspectives at our disposition, including other highly original and off-the-wall films with the exploration of music at their core. 


The full programme is available to view online. Tickets must be reserved in advance and are only available to buy from the website or at the ticket office on C/ Muntaner 24. Check website for details.


- Visit the Beefeater In-Edit website and programme here

Holga - on the swings

BCN - more people watching

BARÇA WINS Champions League

So here is just a very brief selection of fotos I've snapped in and around Barcelona during the last 12 months or so. Some were taken with my NIKON D300, others with a CANON G10...i haven't edited this selection physically in any way - even though some could probably do with a bit of Photoshop tlc, I'm a purist, so what you see is what you get.

Barça wins against Chelsea in the Champions League - massive celebrations on Las Ramblas, May '09.

i went pigeon/people-spotting on plaça catalunya one day, and took a ridiculous amount of snaps as an attempt to get some swooping action-shots of wings, feathers and beady-eyes....mostly in vain. there were too many distractions from the actual subjects in colour so i switched them to good old b+w... but to be honest i still wasn't very satisfied with the outcome. You live and learn. >>>

BCN Barcelona - layers of

Well as my first blog post I suppose I should write a litle bit about what i'm hoping to achieve... basically I've set up this blog as a motivation to begin making new work - work being photography-related - and as a place to put my various creative wafflings (hopefully making more sense out of them n the process!)

Between graduating in 2008 at Falmouth University College with a degree in Photography, moving to and setting-up a new life in Barcelona with various other distractions, I haven't even really thought about beginning a new project but have been taking snapshots of life here from time to time.

I'll start with posting a few snaps i took recently as sort of photographic sketches and a few ideas I've had recently,

This snapshot of leaving the metro (either at Maria Cristina or Poble Sec if i remember correctly) has given me an idea i'm thinking about for a potential project at the moment. The idea is to take well compositioned photos of the view leaving the metro. Using the metro alot in Barcelona, it's always a sort of relief to leave and see the sky again. This could also be done at night.

Something else that strikes me about living in a city is the experience of living in various different layers, and moving through them during various points of the day.

Firstly, at ground-level you weave through the maze of streets, alleys, squares and buildings but can also feel the rumble of the metro beneath you. Then there is the labyrinth of underground passages as you go into the metro and these layers merge as you leave again. And of course the buldings themselves, going into each one and looking out there is literally an infinite number of vantage points, places to hide and places to be found. Going up to Montjuic literally feels as if you are moving into the sky and see the city as a blanket of buildings below. This feeling of moving throughout the different layers of a city is always with me as I move around Barcelona and would like to explore this idea further.