Although I acknowledge the constraints due to the times we’re living in, honestly, studying online is awful. I am not motivated. Fortunately, I have a rich life outside the university and, in a certain sense, I feel like a lot of the things I do outside school, activism and all that, have an impact on the subjects I’m taking. More than the other way around. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Also, whilst in theory, I should be finishing my degree in June since it’s a three-year programme, I am drawing it out because I wanted to study abroad in China. Of course, with everything happening in relation to the coronavirus, I may not be able to. The virus has affected everyone, including me as a student.

Not necessarily. Some of the lecturers are doing everything they can. It’s not their fault. Being in a classroom with physical people, where you interact, is not the same as being alone at home in front of a screen. The lecturer asks a question and there’s silence. No one answers, so he has to say, ‘Alright, let's move on, then.’ It’s not a class. You turn on the computer while you’re doing other things. Sometimes, you don’t even turn the camera on, and, again, that is not a class. I live in Vilanova i la Geltrú. I wouldn’t mind coming in every day, even if it meant catching the train at five in the morning. For me, there is no substitute for face-to-face classes.

I live in Vilanova i la Geltrú. I wouldn’t mind coming in every day, even if it meant catching the train at five in the morning. For me, there is no substitute for face-to-face classes.

Right now, I really can’t say where I will end up working. But my interests are closely related to the search for alternatives through research and the arts. I know that whatever I do, it will involve critical thinking and seeking out alternatives. There are some places here, in Barcelona, such as the Observatori del deute en la globalització, an organization that does critical research on climate change and inequalities. I see myself collaborating in some way with an organization like that, which isn’t a private company or necessarily a public agency, but something in between that produces critical content. 

At home, both my parents make music. My mother is a singer-songwriter and, although my father doesn’t play professionally, he likes synthesizers, computers, all that. That’s how they met. My whole life I have been surrounded by this musical and artistic environment. I started writing my own songs when I was about 16 or 17 and, honestly, it has always been a very organic way for me to express myself. It has also always been connected to the critical vision I have of the world and my concerns about the current moment, the uncertain future, and how we interact with the environment. Well, not the environment per se – talk about ‘the environment’ irritates me – but the world we live in and that we are a part of. From the outset, artistic expression has been very well suited to communicating the kind of angst I began to feel when I was 17.

Describing it in musical terms is very hard because I mix so many things. There are very strange and very different influences. I also don’t have a strict musical background. So, one song might sound quite Celtic, another electronic, another more like folk: it’s a potpourri. On a communicative level, the first songs I wrote sought to capture the internal struggle of not feeling comfortable with the world and reality I had to live in. They convey a feeling of wanting to leave, wanting to fly off. Later, the songs’ discourse sort of evolves. I end up realizing I neither can nor want to leave this reality that it is my lot to live, and so I have to confront it. Ultimately, almost all my songs talk about reconnecting and putting down roots in the world, with the Earth and with people. If there is any common thread to almost all the songs I’ve been working on lately, any single word that defines them, it would that, roots.

If there is any common thread to almost all the songs I’ve been working on lately, any single word that defines them, it would that, roots.

The way I feel about the current moment and the society I was born into, so consumerist and materialistic, so obsessed with individualism and personal visions, personal enterprise, is that it is a society that directly turns its back on life and the processes that sustain it. It turns its back on caring, on communities. Additionally, it is quickly morphing into a sort of virtual bubble obsessed with all things hyper-technological. I think we somehow need to go in the opposite direction in a lot of ways. We need to learn about relationships of interdependence and eco-dependence with people, resources, media, and the other living beings here with us on the planet.

I chose my degree programme because I wanted to understand this state of affairs, which is ultimately global. It is a socioeconomic system rooted in imperialism and colonialism. Although you have to understand the global connections, that does not mean that this global system has no local implications, that there aren’t real, live, breathing people who feel the effects and have rooted stories. I’m interested in these people’s stories and those of the other living beings in this global world.

 I’m interested in these people’s stories and those of the other living beings in this global world.

Studying the origins of this capitalist economic system has been interesting: imperialism, the colonization of the Americas, the key role played by other worlds and countries that we were never taught at school. Understanding all these relationships and the different global actors that participate, intervene in, and shape the system is all quite interesting. Still, as I said, I think I’ve learnt more on the street, from my activism and participation in assemblies.

Music or art is a way of expressing what you feel, and I was feeling apprehensive and concerned deep inside. So, for me, if I was going to express anything, it was going to be that, not so much ‘I’m in love; they broke my heart’. What was really interesting is that, at first, it was a way for me to vent and sort of get things off my chest. But then it managed to connect with the struggle and protests of many other people in the same situation, people who feel the same or similar things, and that has been really nice. That’s the magic: having encountered these activisms and social movements.

What I get out of making music is the idea that I can give something back to other people. Making music because of what you, personally, get out of it is fine, but, one way or another, I need – or would like – what I do to mean something, to have an impact on a cause or people, for it to become a channel or vehicle for communicating critical ideas. For me, what I do would make no sense if I didn’t feel like it served that purpose. As ambitious as it may sound, I would like my music to become part of the soundtrack of change.

As ambitious as it may sound, I would like my music to become part of the soundtrack of change.

I started with environmental activism, and I am still there. In late 2018, when I was just starting my degree programme, we founded an environmentalist assembly here at UPF. And that was when Fridays for Future appeared, this young international movement that went on climate strikes every Friday to protest. It made it to Barcelona, too, and I joined. My profile within the assembly has always been more artistic. Actually, I was on the arts committee. Recently, a friend from the assembly and I launched a parallel project called Climate Sessions, which consists of a social media channel where we produce and distribute art about the climate emergency, in the broadest sense. We share music, but also photographs, videos, poetry... Multidisciplinary art in various formats.

We do it through art, which is a tool that can reach an audience that we otherwise could not reach. 

Because of how it has been communicated to people, the climate crisis often comes laden with stigmas and it is hard to get rid of them. Unfortunately, it has also been communicated very abstractly: emissions, figures that are too high or too low, sustainability, nature, conservation... For many people, it still seems quite remote from their daily reality. This type of information can also cause anxiety in the people it does reach and make them feel like there is nothing to be done. So, our goal is to communicate in a different way. We do it through art, which is a tool that can reach an audience that we otherwise could not reach. We also use this art to connect it with other struggles. Because the stigmas associated with the climate fight are preventing us from teaming up with other social movements that are calling out the same system. You can forge very powerful alliances with art, and we can reach a lot of places.

I am not familiar with everything UPF is doing. I know it is doing some things, and I think that’s very important and positive, but I prefer not to say anything without knowing. That said, I would like for its efforts not to become a mere communication strategy, given how trendy it is becoming these days to talk about sustainability. The idea of sustainability has already started to infiltrate the mainstream discourse of the economic and political elites. I wouldn’t want it to become just another greenwashing strategy at the institutional or educational level too. By greenwashing, I mean tweaking your image to seem green. In reality, you keep doing the same thing, but you add a splash of green to make it seem sustainable. I’m not saying that UPF is doing that, but I would like its commitment to sustainability to be consistently accompanied by an intersectional perspective.

A lot of times, people make proposals that, once you scratch the surface, have no real effect on this emergency and do not benefit people. For example, the whole idea that one way to go green is to go digital. But a digital transition on that scale would consume a lot of energy. The more devices plugged into the grid, the more energy is required, and that has an environmental impact, too. Another example is the famous European Green Deal, a seemingly highly necessary plan for an EU-wide environmental transition. But when you look at it more closely, you see that it relies on materials that have to be extracted from territories outside the EU and that require mining practices that reproduce neocolonial dynamics. It will also cause an increase in the demand for and use of these materials, which are finite and will run out.

I would not want UPF to do that, on a university scale. I want critical lines of research to be opened, because there are alternatives. Groups of researchers, scientists and philosophers are making proposals that are more socially oriented, that reduce the impact of extractivism and redistribute wealth. I would like to see UPF commit to such alternatives, from an eco-feminist, intersectional and just perspective.

We are the generations that have not had a chance to participate in the decisions that have led to this problem and this disaster. At the same time, we have been forced to participate in a system that we are realizing is ecocidal and criminal. What is our role? I think it is to rebel against the system. One very important task we have in order to change the generational mindset is to acknowledge our inter- and eco-dependence. And not just our generation, but through these connections we need to make between generations, around the world and across species. We need to deconstruct the idea of the self-made, self-employed individual. I hope our generation will make this shift in mindset and come to see ourselves as part of the world, as just another part of the planet.

What is our role? I think it is to rebel against the system.