SEPTEMBER 23RD, 2022
Each week 100 NFTs are minted and randomly airdropped to UNDRGRND Membership Cardholders. To find out how you can be featured as an UNDRGRND Artist check out our Discord.
An entire generation coming of age during the current iteration of an artistic renaissance raised on anime gives us these talented animators conveying dark themes and undertones behind colorful cartoons.
Jordi Gandul, from Barcelona, is one of these artists focusing his creations around industrialization, typically indicating growth and success while bringing with it corruption, deceit and pollution. Born and raised in a small town outside of Barcelona, Tarragona, home of the largest chemical hub in southern Europe. Quick internet searches will bring about marketing materials celebrating the jobs created and the exporting and importing of a wide variety of chemical and natural resources. What you will not find is the effect it has on the surrounding areas, specifically the communities and people who run these chemical plants.
“You can go outside and ask everyone their thoughts about this topic,” says Jordi, “you will quickly see the people’s disappointment.”
“Rich people rule the game, just to make money, so they can keep winning this game. Workers’ safety and wellness are not a priority. We are not listened to. We’re always blamed if a company fails, like the explosion that took place in my town. Two persons died, and they are still blamed for it by the owners of the plant who didn’t even make it to court. They were young and, in fact, hired with no training at all, just for the sake of saving money for the company. And then tragedy happens. And if we try to protest about it, we get beaten up by policemen, so that’s why I say authorities should be accountable for this matter, and not cover up to make people forget about it. That kind of stuff makes it hard for us to trust them.”
“We are done with explosions, bad smells, bad air quality and cancer.”
HUE POWER PLANT
DISREPAIR
SICK & TIRED
TRIPPIN IN TOKYO
TO THE MOON
MUSHROOM GANG
Growing up poor Jordi’s art was never encouraged or seen as a possible career to pursue. Like many families from his town, they were far too busy with work to see the potential in Jordi’s talent. So while he does not see his work as political or as a social critique but rather as a freestyle expression, it’s impossible to ignore the impact that his life has had on his art. He creates what he knows and experiences.
“I’ve been lost for a lot of time, trying to understand where I could fit,” Jordi says, “It took so many years to trust in myself and know that I’m able to build what I want.”
What Jordi is building are beautiful cities filled with the same toxic (literally and figuratively) issues. However, here he is the omnipotent voice speaking to those injustices.
