Albert Einstein once said: “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Folch grew up in a small town near Barcelona. Few years ago, with the help of his friend Rafa Martinez, he founded 'Folch Studio’, a Barcelona based design agency, and rapidly acquired an international reputation. As passionates of publishing projects, they created Eldorado experience, an ambitious editorial platform. Neither a book, a magazine, a fanzine, nor a catalog, « Eldorado is a publication ». Exploring the relationship between outdoors, nature and sport, this unclassifiable trans media editorial project is an ode to regular people doing exceptional trips, using nature as the essential thread.
Tell me the story around this first issue of 'Eldorado experience'.
I went for a surf trip to Morocco with some friends. Xavi Carbonell, a designer and art director from Barcelona, Santos Henarejos, a graphic designer from Alicante living in Madrid (partner in Folch since few months) and Dizy Díaz, a photographer from Asturias living in Barcelona. We spent eleven days in the wonderful place in between Essaouira and Agadir. I was only focusing on surfing trying to have as many surf sessions as I could per day, completely ignoring all the photos Dizy Díaz was taking. When we got back to Barcelona, he showed me the footage and I was amazed. That was the surf I has never been able to find in magazines, ordinary surfers trying to disconnect from their stress being in contact with nature and sea. Rafa and I decided to launch a publication to show the trip. We didn't have any other plans for the project actually. We conceptualized the project and asked our friend from Firma to create a name for the publication. And that's how Eldorado experience was born. After the first publication, my partner Rafa convinced me to turn Eldorado into a digital editorial project. We started to reconceptualise the project and develop the idea, achieving the platforms that exists today: a trans media editorial project about regular people doing exceptional trips. We are open to other sports not just surfing. We focus all our attention on explaining the story behind the trips using nature as the essential thread.
In which way does Eldorado differentiate from your other editorial projects?
Eldorado is not a book. As I have already mentioned Eldorado is a transmedia editorial project. I was looking for something new, something fresh, far away from fashion or art design. I was completely exhausted with the other publications and I wanted to explore the outdoors, nature and sport. My work reflects my life and my life nowadays is focused on that. With Eldorado, the reader will find the experiences of our travelers, they will find respect and interest in nature. They will find feelings and emotions explained through stories. Eldorado is showing readers incredible stories of unknown super heroes that suddenly one day decided to quit with their routines and start a trip, sometimes venturing to places with no goals or plans following an unique journey and experience. It is an ode to nature and how good I feel when I'm in the ocean surfing alone or with friends. It is an ode to animals who live with us that we know nothing about. There's just pure love and respect to where we live.
We've noticed surfing plays a major role in your expeditions. How have you been introduced to surfing?
My friend Rafa and I started to surf when we were 18. But, at that time, going out and electronic music was much more important to us. When I turned 30, I started to feel tired of going out, I wanted to practice sport again and surfing came to my mind. I felt that this chapter wasn't closed. Three years after, I went to Las palmas in the Canary Islands to give a conference and Jesús Umbría, the guy who invited me, allowed me to have a surf lesson in "Los Muellitos", one of the spots of La Cicer Beach. I re-learned how to surf with a friend of him, Manuel Cabezudo who both became close friends of mine. Manuel has been and still is very helpful and supportive. After finishing my lesson, I went straight to a shop to buy a board and brought it back to Barcelona. Since that day I haven't stopped surfing. That was in september 2009. Surfing is a very complex and challenging sport, but, at the same time, absolutely gratifying and extremely rewarding. The first thing I have to thank surfing for is the chance to rediscover my authentic passion: nature. Surfing is the perfect excuse to enjoy life, to travel, to visit other countries, to meet new people and to be in contact with nature. Aside from this, in every surf session I feel emotion, nervousness, fear, happiness, calm, peace… These unique feelings are multiplied by ten when shared with a friend in the water.
For this first edition of Eldorado experience, you chose to get accompanied by photographer Dizy Diaz. Could you tell us more about him?
Dizy is a close friend of mine from Barcelona. His photography reflects 100% what we need in Eldorado. He also surfs and when I started to surf, he was my close surf mate, sharing so many surf sessions together. He taught me the essentials, he joined me in the early morning surf sessions in the wild mediterranean sea, giving me support and confidence. He is a talented photographer and more importantly, he is very generous. I mean if the light is perfect and the photography could be nice, he would prefer to miss a surf session in order take pictures.
What's next now?
In terms of work, my partners Rafa, Santos and I are very busy managing the agency. We have a lot of plans and projects to develop, make the agency grow with new projects and new people working with us. Aside from the agency, Eldorado project is growing and growing. With Guille Cascante and Rafa Martínez, my two partners in the project, we have many future plans. We are currently working on a book but we can’t reveal too much at the moment. On the other side, we want to keep on working with audiovisuals and exploring more and more this language, between documentary and aesthetic pieces. In this sense, we are so proud of the series that we just released 'Portraits at the edge of the world', produced by Eldorado, directed by Goroka (Guille's production company) and presented on NOWNESS.
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