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Catalunya with its magnificent capital Barcelona is home of many great artists – and also home of one of the most up-and-coming decoration projects. Meet Cels and César, the masterminds behind Mimesis Decoration.
Tell us a little about your team Mimesis Decoration:
How did you meet? What are your individual strengths?
We met on the way to Ozora in 2011 and made an instant connection, discovering that we had a common view on psychedelia. Cels is the artistic genius of the group, whose strengths lie in disciplines like painting, drawing, and sculpting. César is the operational engine whose strengths lie in project development, design, planning, and execution. With such complementary talents, we quickly developed a strong working relationship as we’re both committed to innovation and finding creative new ways to stimulate the psyche. Also of course we gathered an amazing team of helpers, who make possible to develop the projects we have in mind.
After a lot of work and development we finally created a technique that allows us to transport large amounts of decoration in small spaces, being able to carry as many as 2-3 big main stages in a simple 12 cubic meters van. We even developed sculptures specially designed to be carried as normal-sized plane suitcases which allows us to break the normal limits of the transport. Thanks to this technique, we’ve also reduced the setup planning time, because we only need a really basic infrastructure, and the rest we make ourselves, e.g. working with bamboo and stick structures.
What were the biggest, most spectacular Mimesis projects so far?
Last season’s bigger projects were One Love (pic 1+2), S.U.N. (pic 3) and Connection Festival (pic 4). Each one of them was changeling in very different ways. For example, One Love was the biggest festival mainstage we’ve decorated to date (around 10K people capacity). That’s where we made our first lycra canopy with 40 meters in diameter – with no previous experience in working with this technique and no time for mistakes…
Also, the stage had special requirements to accommodate a number of rather large bands. The decoration had to be adaptable to the bands or DJs, depending on the setup. We were really pleased with the result and found a good solution, making a modular removable front. The theme of the festival, which inspired us, was “Seeds of Love”, which we represented through heart-shaped sprouts.
S.U.N. (pic 3) was particularly special for us because we had a beautiful inspirational experience on the first edition, and decorating its mainstage was a dream come true. We clearly saw that the S.U.N. needed a sun on the mainstage, so we combined this idea with our fractal concept to make it happen and, in our opinion, this is probably the best stage we have made so far.
And, of course, Connection (pic 4) which was the first festival that we decorated back in 2012 and that is always the last festival on the summer calendar. So every year we gather all our experience and energy to come up with a huge end-of-the-season challenge for ourselves. In the last edition, we gave birth to a concept we were eager to introduce: A big sculpture lamp, completed with an enormous flower stage in harmony with the beautiful nature of the place.
This summer we’ve selected the perfect number of gigs to allow us to make each one of them unique and special, and of course for each we want to make the setups as big and memorable as possible. I know it sounds like the “politically correct” answer, but it’s true. If we were to highlight just a couple, maybe we’d recommend you keep an eye on what we’re preparing for Psy-Fi, because we’re going to try something different, more darkish, and we’re super excited about how the new pieces we’re doing for it will turn out. And Connection, where we always do our best, but this year we’re planning something really huge!
Imagine we could bring back the dead and had all the money in the world: With which artist(s) would you like to collaborate?
Hard question, there are many artists who’ve inspired us deeply and we’d love to work with and learn from all of them. However, some of the first names that immediately come to our minds are Gaudí and Dalí, because as Catalans we’ve grown up very close to their amazing creations, and they’re closely related to an interpretation of nature in their own way. On the psychedelic side, luckily there are many living legends we really admire and respect. Too many to name, but some highlights for us are Fabián Jiménez and Alex Grey. On decorations Carin (Artescape) is the best we’ve ever seen by far.
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