Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Tez Talks Radio. I am your host, marisa Tru, and today I am joined by Bosque Gracias. More specifically, rocio and Mariano, an innovative artist collective and residency program based in Patagonia, argentina, that merges art, nature and technology. So welcome to the show. Thank you for jumping on at such a late hour, but how are you both?

Speaker 2: 0:22

Perfect. Thank you so much for this talk, for this invitation. How are you both? Perfect. Thank you so much for this talk, for this invitation. How are you there?

Speaker 1: 0:27

I'm very good and it's a pleasure to have you on. I would love to start with basically asking you both to introduce yourselves and the bosque gracias art residency. You know how did you both come to create this and what is its core mission.

Speaker 3: 0:43

Okay, we started with this idea about inviting people to this place to enjoy the nature. We started with permaculture and we started with cyclists. You know there is a lot of cyclists that travels by bicycle to the world. So this place was like a place to receive people who was traveling, but was our principal idea as artists to give a big welcome to artists. So Art Residences was always part of this project, but was unreachable until we were on board on blockchain. Blockchain was like I don't know the power that gave us the opportunity to receive artists. Yeah, that is the main importance about this.

Speaker 2: 1:38

We, as a collective have been working in Buenos Aires and 10 years ago we decided to be a family immigration to the nature and we have been always working with machines that maybe are analog or kind of obsolete objects that can create art and they start to be discarded because of the fast of the movement.

Speaker 2: 2:03

So we were always connected to this slow way of creating things and the project about art residency is now like the living dream of these 10 years of building ideas in this territory with our artist way of doing the things. It's an artist way about building homes with our hands, as Mariano was talking about permaculture and having your garden and your fruits and your vegetables to be respectful with the environment. That it's nature, that it's alive, and this way of sharing it with artists. It has to be to turn nature into an inspiration point. So, with all these technologies we were working and more that we learned in this process about our residencies, we are sharing the space as a place where you can be in nature, but not in vacations. You know, it's not about how chill nature is, it's about this me in nature, I'm so powerful, I can do a lot of things and you find that your day is full of things to do, inspiration, things to contemplate, to have time to say I am not doing anything. I am making a contemplation moment.

Speaker 1: 3:20

It's totally different, and that was the idea about sharing the project of nature and technology together to the way the modern world or the major cities work, but at the same time, you are still embracing a very new technology and using that as a discovery tool to what you are doing, you know, in a very remote area. So what was it about blockchain that attracted you, in particular, as a way of attracting people to Bosque? Gracias to explore this sort of experience.

Speaker 3: 4:03

It's difficult. Yeah, it's like we love this idea about contrast, about showing two worlds, that maybe you see these worlds too different, but they are so similar. So, yeah, blockchain is really inspiring when you are studying trees, and when you are studying trees and when you are studying ecology. By the other way, blockchain and the Tezos family was like an open space, was like a new territory, like Rocio said, like a place where all this ecosystem of artists live together and you can join, you know, like trees and shrubs and I don't know plants. So, yeah, we enjoy too much meeting these people, meeting you. You know, today we enjoy too much these meetings, so we wanted to invite people to make these in real life meetings. Yeah, with the people of Argentina, first, because we started to meet our local people, and then the people from even Argentina is very big.

Speaker 3: 5:11

Yeah, it's very big, not only Buenos Aires, you know. But yeah, there is a lot of people based on Buenos Aires. But yeah, argentina is a big country, so you have a lot of places, a lot of people. So, yeah, I don't know if I answered the question.

Speaker 2: 5:28

I think that it was a very important point where we enter in the ecosystem, that it was from a Discord group that you know. After pandemics, a lot of Internet people turned into Internet communities. It was not separated people working on Internet. We need a place to meet each other because we cannot meet. For us, living in rurality was a very important moment in our cultural ecosystem because it was like the slow open door where we can go and say, oh, we are also creating art here in the middle of the mountain. Nobody's seen me, but I have been creating 10 years of artworks, incredible ones, and we don't have museums or galleries. And after that movement in internet we discovered that we can start living a bit there. And after these groups in Discord, we have found that we as communities start getting organized like Seed in Brazil, neutro Arts, that is from Latin America. We're here in Patagonia. So we start like Latins, meeting each other and start to build something together.

Speaker 3: 6:59

Sorry, but as artists, we started I don't know like 2010 on Tumblr. We were very active in that culture, in that internet culture based on Buenos Aires in that moment. But when we migrate to these areas, rural areas with mountains, where the life is another kind of stuff and you find another cultural people. So when we migrate here, we live without internet like five years. Five years without the internet. We needed to go to a place to connect to internet. So we we, we don't have a time in that moment, we don't have time to I don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:46

CMs.

Speaker 3: 7:47

Yeah, it was like a list. You go to internet. Yeah, please download a movie for me for this night. It was the only thing that we could do in that moment when I think pandemic or the lockdown, yeah, we live that experience, so different from other people, from the people of the cities. We live it I don't know was soft and what we are living here. We was like a totally natural lockdown for years.

Speaker 2: 8:19

In a moment, it started for us to see like the good way of this shit happening because sorry for the word because Everybody was trying to connect with themselves and taking time to live in another connection with oh, this is my home, now I am here all the day, I don't go to work, like a lot of things that I think that a lot of people wouldn't have the opportunity in their life to choose this way of living, so they have to choose it because they cannot choose. Even it was a bad thing without the bad word. We start seeing some like treasuries, and I think that it's most of the. That is a mechanism we always have when we build something. It's like, oh, this is not so good, oh, but this is really good happening because of this, that it is bad and that it's like the balance of nature and the alive things turning and grow with you.

Speaker 3: 9:19

Yeah, you need to see the best things on the bad ones. So that is maybe a mechanism of Bosque about taking technology and say, hey, this is good, this is bad, ok, I don't need it, but something good I need it. So internet in that moment was something that, hey, we need this because the world was changing and things was happening I don't know how to say and the technology in the town was changing because people need to be connected. The town Epusen we live in a town called Epusen, here in the province of Chubut in Argentina. This town is a very tiny town, 3,000, 5,000 people. So internet came here more strong Not so long ago.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Yeah, not so long ago.

Speaker 3: 10:16

Yeah, yeah, not not so long, so long ago, yeah, it was in in the lockdown so we connect to internet and was like that. That was a really interesting experience because, after five years of don't connect your home to internet, when you connect to internet is something that your body knows, you know. It was like a lot of ancient, ancient knowledge. Internet, when you connect to internet, is something that your body knows, you know, was like a lot of ancient anxiety, yeah, and was like, wow, a lot of things are happening. And, yeah, blockchain is happening. We know about blockchain, but we never use it. Yeah, because we are very nerds, but we were living in rural areas, so it wasn't something necessary.

Speaker 2: 11:09

I think that it was a moment in our biography of family that we were having children. We want to have the experience of building a home for my mother with my hands being dirty all the day. It was a moment in our life to live that way. And when we go back to the internet, going with the thread of the story, there was these groups in discord happening, and here in Patagonia there are two artists that were working in that network and connected with Tezos, stany Bay and Nico Alerce. And Nico tells us oh, you should join the Discord. This is where we are meeting now and we are all minting our artworks here and there.

Speaker 2: 11:49

We found a lot of artists that we deeply admire as hashtags in Tumblr or another shitty webs that we like to see, and it was this is my people here.

Speaker 2: 12:01

It was like meeting with the people you know from all your internet life again in your rural internet life.

Speaker 2: 12:08

So this coming back was like coming to a place that is comfortable to you, that it's like a new home.

Speaker 2: 12:19

So there we have the new challenge about OK, I learn English in my school, but these things about the GMs and all the codes that Internet people have to show their artworks and how to say thank you to somebody that collects you, and this, ok, we have to start growing a new network from here and we found that on Tezos, like in the first means we have, we start minting like one artwork a day, trying to make a sold out until the next artwork out, until the next artwork. And we have this movement that it was so, so, like a shiny moment, when somebody collects you, that artwork that you have having seen in your home for years that you couldn't share it to nobody, only the people that come to home, and you start selling it and somebody says to you I see you, now You're an artist there and you're a collective. And somebody says to you I see you, now You're an artist there and you're a collective. In the first moment, I think that Bosque Gracias being a collective was something that helped us also to show who we are.

Speaker 1: 13:25

I think it's so fascinating that you basically stepped out of being connected to the internet at around a sort of, you know, the Tumblr era and then you jumped back in during the blockchain, art, nft era and they're so distinct but they're still kind of rooted in the sense of online community that you managed to tap into so quickly so you could get involved and you could learn so fast, because the process wasn't easy at first to actually start.

Speaker 1: 13:52

You know minting artworks, so to immediately find artists that you know locally that could sort of support that journey, and then you're now in a position where you are, I guess, giving that energy back and supporting other artists through your residency has created this sort of circular effect which is beautiful to see. So, if we look at the art residency in closer detail, how does does it work? You know you've connected with this global network of Tezos artists who I'm sure are finding whatever means necessary to be able to come visit a space like you have at Bosque Gracias. What can they expect? What do you guys do as part of the residency program?

Speaker 2: 14:34

In the beginning we have a calendar. Now we have seven residencies from October to March this year. We decide this calendar and we have seven days of very detailed schedule, or cronograma, we say in Spanish, and we try to manage the group of artists that are coming. We always know which group, what techniques they work, what they want to do, because all the artists come to Bosque with different objectives. You know, some artists want to spend more time connecting with themselves or with their artworks.

Speaker 2: 15:11

Some artists come because they are maybe working in publicity or mass media and need to come back with the techniques to the work I love to do.

Speaker 2: 15:19

Some others come just to see how we can connect all together and we try to mix all these experiences in this chronogram, in this schedule, in these seven days, trying to work with like the breathing, like inside outside, inside, outside, so we can take nature as a inspirational point and to develop the artworks with all the techniques that we work and the ones that we can find that can power each artist work. So the techniques that every day we do is connected with the group of that residency. It's not like a normal program you come to do and we include in this experience all the meals are prepared with foods that grow seasonally here, with incredible friends that become cookers all their lives, so this is an opportunity for them too. So this experience about bringing artists has also a power in our local community, because we have to hire a photographer, we need to edit videos, we need to make graphics, and all that creates also the circle of people that is working with us.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Do you find that the people who come to attend these art residencies sort of have this art technology theme embedded in their approach? Or do you find there are people who come to experiment because this is a new perspective or a new paradigm that they want to create with?

Speaker 3: 16:56

How was the first term that you say in your question?

Speaker 1: 17:01

I was saying that when people come to discover Bosque Gracias, do you have people who are sort of already passionate about this art and technology divide or intersection, or do you find that people are coming to explore that as a new territory for themselves?

Speaker 3: 17:28

Usually, the majority of the people is on blockchain, is already minting on Tezos. It's on blockchain, it's already minting on Tezos. But there are some cases of people that it's the first time and they want to live the experience and to onboard and to feel safety about onboarding. Yeah, this place is. I know it's a really safety place to be because you are surrounded by other artists that they are already working on objects, minting and selling, and it's like an opportunity to see all the layers of how is this. You know, and yes, and the little experience, but strong experience of Bosque gives to them this idea about how to do it. But we try to not be like a school of onboarding. We make this because it's beautiful. Somebody onboard us.

Speaker 2: 18:26

And also not to be close to work. Only we don't chain people.

Speaker 2: 18:30

So, this way of being open to all the artists that have a project, that want to develop here or work with us. They can come and if they are not onboarded, we can talk. As Mariana was saying, we can explain to you how this works and it depends mostly on the artist. How much passionate are they about building community on Internet? Most in Tezos ecosystem that is about building community on internet. Most in Tezos ecosystem that is about building community.

Speaker 2: 18:58

And I think that for some artists, coming to Bosque is about experiencing some utopic dream most of people in a moment in their lives has about what happens if I go away from the city. Can I be an artist anywhere or I need to be with all the people, all the crowd, the stages and the galleries, and what happens if I really want to go away from this mess. So I think that Bosque for a lot of artists this last year, this year, we made six art residencies, two of them with this community I named from Brazil, then they are from Sao Paulo and it's a very it's like Gotham City, I say like the darkest city I can imagine, the fastest one. So I think that for them it was not also a thing about the techniques. It's about how can we be developing what we want to be in nature.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Yeah, a lot of people came here and enjoy the place, the nature, the connection, the ancient trees, the river on summer. But I think there is a lot of artists that they want to leave the experience about the multidisciplinary fusion reunion that we make here, Because we have a lot of games about making collabs with another artist we make like a sorteo.

Speaker 2: 20:19

The spin wheel.

Speaker 3: 20:20

Yeah, like a spin wheel where you need to collab with another artist, so it's totally random. So, yeah, we take a lot of value on that About. You are here, you are living here, this is your house. When you are here on Bosque and it is your. Yes, you're challenging to maintain the place to be in your house really, and you are living with others. So this community experience is part of the invitation of Bosque.

Speaker 1: 20:52

So how many people attend each of the residencies and how long do they typically stay?

Speaker 2: 21:00

The biggest one we did last year was 14 guest artists and we in Bosque we are three based artists, we two and Nicolese, and so we were 17 and some artists that live here in Patagonia that don't stay at Bosque that come to enjoy the residency too. But this year we are going to use three houses that we have here in the same field to make residencies for nine people.

Speaker 3: 21:29

Yeah, seven days, seven to 10 days.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Yes, in our time we say that we have these seven days of hard work and we have like five and five days from the beginning and in the last, so you can feel at home, find your place, feel the studio, all the machines. You can use one or two days to set up your connections and to live all the experience and to go away from here without hurry, without leaving things to do, to have a moment to say I do something really beautiful here and have this time so obviously, you both are artists as well, and so you naturally get to enjoy everything that you are creating within the residency, too.

Speaker 1: 22:15

How has it impacted your own creative work in terms of interacting with this community of artists, being influenced by them, having an influence on them? How has that impacted your work?

Speaker 3: 22:27

uh, I think we, we, we don't have another way to do this thing. This is the way we make things art or everything, or family. You know, like we have two kids, but when the visit comes here, the two kids, they are open to learn from the others. You know, it's like giving your kids to the others, so this is the way, you know, like sharing we enjoy this too much. You know, like I don't know, the things that we learn from the other people is too much, and I think they feel the same, or they say that they feel the same, because coming here and maybe learning new techniques or just the experience about making your own firewood or anything, you know it's yeah, it's so reciprocal I.

Speaker 2: 23:20

I think that, uh, it's also a like a powerful moment when two artists have time to share what they like to do in their lives, not also what. This is my machine. I do analog glitches. Oh, you're a musician. Oh, maybe we can do something together, like, okay, let's have a tea, let's talk to me about your track, oh, and all these divdy things you always do. Do you know from where they come from? Having this kind of talks? They are also totally powerful for the artworks we are building.

Speaker 2: 24:01

I think that the first art residencies we do we did it was like a totally open window and all the wind coming, like I have missed so many things in these years and I want to go back to circuit bending and I want to go back to techniques that I have done in my past life and I connect with other artists and say this is incredible again. So it's like turning on a light to each other, like, oh, this brings me passion to do it now.

Speaker 3: 24:34

Yeah, it's unbelievable really. I don't know. There is something that people just remember things about their childhood. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 24:44

Like the smells. Yeah, the smell of the food. Like the smells.

Speaker 3: 24:48

Yeah, the smell of the food, or they remember something about their parents and the way they live. It's beyond the art, you know, it's the experience, the communal experience. But yeah, in that seven days we worked so hard about the production, so hard, it's like all the day working. That's why we have, like, all the meals are ready cooked yeah, cooked, or people cooking for us, because we are really concentrated on making up and to work on what the artists want to do or learn. Yeah, we are passionate I mean it.

Speaker 1: 25:29

It sounds like so much to squeeze into seven days so everyone kind of goes through this restorative, almost healing experience just being able to reconnect with nature, and then from there they have this. You know, this momentum to create again, and so making sure you can squeeze it all in a week is surely quite challenging.

Speaker 3: 25:51

Yeah, it is challenging.

Speaker 2: 25:53

This past year. We have artists that come, that choose to come in different seasons and for us but speaking by myself, I feel totally honored about that decision of them, because they come on autumn, that it's totally wet, the colors are yellow, red, the things are inside the house, the techniques we work are totally different of summer and they come in summer to have the opportunity to go inside the river, not just to see the river, to go inside and to build new artworks connected with the ones that they have built and see them like. All this time I have passed in my life and now I am here again and I have so many different experiences to achieve until I come again. So for our project and for our family, that is really powerful, because that brings me to see that somebody is really having the full experience of this. Because sometimes we have doubts.

Speaker 2: 26:57

For example, the seven days, or it should be 15 days, yes, but who is going to pay it? Because we have to pay for the cookers and the materials and all the things, or we need a bigger supporter. So we have to some things. We have to step back, because now we don't have that kind of support. It would be lovely, it would be wonderful to have 20 days with a creative artist. I have it in my mind, but I need the support for that. So it's a plan for the future. Now I'm building slow, what I can sustain, because when you build something you have to hold it until you can build it bigger, because you need bigger hands to hold it, because now the project is bigger, you know. So the first year we make two art residencies. The second year we make six.

Speaker 1: 27:44

So you tripled it. So you tripled it. So what are some of the challenges that you always have to be mindful of as you try to expand? Bosque Gracias. What are some of the?

Speaker 2: 28:05

things that you need to continue to work through before you can really build bigger.

Speaker 2: 28:07

I think that a really powerful thing that could make us bigger is to have this opportunity of create some artists, that we have been working with them online, that we have collab with them, that we admire each other so much and I need somebody to pay the ticket and the 15 days of these people here Six, for example, in a dreamland that could be something that make us bigger.

Speaker 2: 28:31

I think that we have some plans to make the project bigger, but now, in these days, we are in this moment of enjoying it, to enjoy that we can sustain this. This year we have planned for these seven art residencies and now we have this open call to full all of them and to create this wonderful experience for them. So we have this time from now to the to October that for us is autumn and winter to prepare some, some things in the houses. We always want to welcome the people, like with the, not only a nice place, it's about what we were saying, about feeling at home. So to make all that ready and we have a lot of machines like installations of TVs, the projector, a lot of tables to co-work we always try to make these things better, also this past year. Now we have a screen inside and a screen to go to the forest to make mappings, for example, and that way is another way of growing too.

Speaker 1: 29:40

So it's not just, you know, it's not just the actual physical setup. It's making sure that artists have all the equipment that they're potentially going to want to use. It's about building the community and, like the word of mouth of those that have been there, before spreading the word to others who might be curious and might want to join, how else can you know the Tezos community support you guys if they are not yet able to buy a ticket to attend? How else can they sort of be a part of Bosque Gracias?

Speaker 2: 30:11

They can collect artworks for all the artists at the art residencies. We invite the people of Texas working artists, collectors, curators Everybody can collect an artwork on Texas. So we always set up a Texas token support.

Speaker 3: 30:29

Yeah, the way that all the editions of Art Residency works is with, first, this token support that usually is made by an inviting artist or an artist that is coming to the Art Residency as a commission. Yeah, he or she made the artwork by a commission, so the token support is our principal way of getting funds for the art residency of that edition and all the rest of the collection of that edition is the way that the artist itself takes some funds to receive this experience. That's why the artists that are coming to the art residency, they need really the collectors to support them, because they, as artists, they say, hey, I need to grow with this. I want to go to the art residency because it's an experience that makes me grow as an artist, to meet other people, you know, so the works that get out from here. That is the principal way to support the artist itself, because we have the token support is super clean, is transparent.

Speaker 3: 31:46

You know everybody knows that we split the winnings with everybody Because the token support is super clean, is transparent. You know everybody knows that we split the winnings with everybody on that edition. But the artist itself, with the work that they are doing, yeah, that is the way to support the artist. That's why it's a very good technology. It's not only about crypto, it's about the technology, the that we we can split works with others. You know if, if we are working in the same thing, we can split and everything is automatic. The royalties, you know, yeah, I came from a music project on buenos aires with discographics and that that is like a I don't know, it's not a good place to start to be an artist, but here, with this, it's perfect. You know royalties really. Yeah, it is really.

Speaker 3: 32:58

I don't know how to say it gives a solution yeah, it gives a solution to artists to to really take the royalties that you deserve.

Speaker 1: 33:10

So it kind of creates this natural fairness.

Speaker 2: 33:13

For these past editions. We get support from different independent artists that want to support the residency and they split us money and they send a message and they say this is for your project, for the art residencies, and we have a help from texas commons from the season of autumn yeah, it was autumn it was autumn and yes, I think that, yes, last year all of the residencies has like an like an angel.

Speaker 2: 33:48

We say it's like somebody that supports and that support we split with the artist that comes to the residency and they get like a discount in the end with the token support earnings and this money that people want in Tezos now is working in Tezos for us Wanting to help to support the project.

Speaker 3: 34:11

Yeah, it was a really good moment about artists coming to art residency and was totally free for them.

Speaker 1: 34:21

So it kind of gives opportunity to artists who you know either potentially don't necessarily have the means to start off paying right away, but can get there and making sure it's as inclusive as possible, which I think is a wonderful thing. Next residency planned for this autumn. What is going into the preparation for that and what do you want the Tezos community to know about this next chapter, should they be interested in getting involved?

Speaker 2: 34:58

Yeah, they, they it's going to be in October, not autumn, the next edition.

Speaker 3: 35:04

Yeah, they need to know that we are in autumn right now. So that's why in October we start, like in September. October we start with spring, so we start on spring. Yeah, so we have time. You can contact us to know everything, and contact us to know everything.

Speaker 2: 35:24

We start becoming like a trip agency, also trying to learn how to get cheaper flights and to say, oh, if you are coming from Colombia, you're going to be.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Do you want to stop in Buenos Aires, or should we look another place? For the international people that for this year are coming? We are getting ready with that part about making them come in a safe way, like in a trust place. Our airport is not so near Bosque but we have all the trip covered to get the people from the airport to here. This year now we have some people that it's coming to the first one, that it's in October, that they are coming from Latin America, so they have to step in another airport before Bariloche that it's ours. So our plans now are like how to make this all trip comfortable for people that want to come, not only from Argentina.

Speaker 2: 36:27

That it's happening now and for us spring it's a wonderful moment of all the alive things going again to life. So we always planned for that edition a day that we go to a workshop of engravery from a woman that lives in a mountain, that we have to cross a lake because the mountain itself is an island. So she has been living there as an artist 40 years. So for us she was like one of our dreams to be in the moment when we come. It was, she could live as an artist 40 years here. She's now working on Tezos too. She is like 73 years, I think. So, yes, she's really young in the spirit, you know. So it's really an enjoyable moment to bring all the artists to her studio, because she lives mostly alone, and it's also a wonderful experience for all the artists. Maybe some of them never cross the lake, never go to a boat. It's like feeling yourself safe, like another way of another experience. I never imagined that I could be doing this. And spring comes with all that magic.

Speaker 1: 37:47

It sounds like such a magical experience and I wish I was an artist so that I could make the most out of a residency like that. It just sounds like a beautiful place and like something that people can only really do once in a lifetime, if they're lucky. So the fact that you both get to live there and create this for other people, I think, is really magical. I wish we could stay on and, you know, continue chatting, and I would love to.

Speaker 1: 38:17

I would love to spend time digging into both of your creative disciplines and you know the things that inspire you both. But I would also love to save that for when we speak again, hopefully during or after this next residency, so we can see what's come out and see the art that we're celebrating yes, yes, good idea, yeah because that way, I think, we can continue the conversation over the longer term and see how. Bosque, gracias, grows, and I think that would be really wonderful.

Speaker 3: 38:49

Wonderful, yeah, yeah, very good idea.

Speaker 1: 38:53

Well, Rocio and Mariano, thank you both so much for sharing your story. It's genuinely one of the most unique stories that I think I've heard in the Tesla ecosystem and I've been here for quite a few years, so it was really really wonderful speaking to you both and thank you so much for your time. That I think I've heard in the Tesla ecosystem and I've been here for quite a few years, so it was really really wonderful speaking to you both and thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 3: 39:10

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. You were so kind and, yeah, it was perfect.

Speaker 2: 39:14

It's wonderful to share things of your life that are so deep inside of you with somebody that's following your flow. So thank you.

Speaker 1: 39:24

My pleasure genuinely.