SPARK
SI-018, from issue 4, 2022.
Enter a Multi-Purpose Mutant Space
Bráulio Amado is a graphic designer and illustrator from Portugal, currently living in New York City. His vibrant, kinetic work has appeared in the New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, WIRED, and more, and he’s collaborated with artists including Beck, Frank Ocean, Róisín Murphy, and Robyn.
BA We were taking a walk while complaining about the lack of spaces in New York City that feel weird and artistic without feeling too precious or designed. So we were like: “You know what, why don’t we start a place around that idea?”. Sadly, it is over because of the pandemic. We had to close the physical location and organize classes online, but it wasn’t as fun without human-to-human interaction. But, it was a really good three years.
UDÖ Real estate in New York is costly, so you would see a coffee shop that is also a bar and a bookstore. Every space is squeezed like a lemon to its potential. So, I love that the room was your studio during the day and a communal event space during the night.
BA In New York City, everyone is already used to hustling and branching out to live comfortably. We didn’t want SSHH to have a specific place like a store. Me using the space as a studio was the benefit of having a space at all. But it also allowed people to book appointments and visit during the day. We wanted to bring people together and form a free community. SSHH wasn’t a business. Quite often, people would walk by and knock on the door. We had a sign that said: “I’m busy.” when I am in work mode. It was fun to have people interrupt me, maybe an excellent way to take an unexpected break.
BA That’s the fun part of New York, you know? Enjoy the interruptions.
UDÖ My favorite part of your yearly self-published books is those in-between pages that show you making ugly drawings of people in a bar. What is the story behind them?
BA If SSHH was our version of a store, this was our version of a party.
It’s called OWL because we didn’t want a regular dance party but a place where people are involved. So one of us is a therapist, so they give 5-minute therapy. Nick was the DJ. I draw people on the corner while they draw me, so we have a fun interaction at the club. Sometimes we have friends doing drag, sometimes there will be projected videos specifically made for the party.
UDÖ Were there any failed parties?
JG We knew we wanted to DJ Disco music, and that sets the tone as fun, very gay, and just happy. Everything else we did besides the music would fit in that mindset. It was also primarily for our friends and us. Everyone was welcome, but we were very bad at promoting it. The bars we hosted OWL, still wanted people to come. It’s mainly at this place, Julian’s, and they are already a tiny bar/hamburger place. It’s already chaotic, so it just adds to it.
UDÖ Good Room is also an alternative dance music venue where your art sets the precedence for their output. How did that relationship form?
BA I was working at Bloomberg Businessweek, and it is a weekly magazine, but all the work was mostly done within three days. A friend of mine from Portugal started working in Good Room, and she wasn’t happy with the guy who designed their posters. She was like: “I want you to design them!”. I was like: “I have a job; this sounds like a lot of work; I will do it if you let me do whatever the fuck I want.”. So we started with the understanding that I could only spend one hour on the posters. I did a few, and slowly they hired me as their graphic designer to do all of them. I am fortunate to be doing it because it feels like a sketchbook. They often start with a photo I took of a cigarette bud or some crazy pattern. The idea is to look at something boring or useless and look at it from a different perspective. We are so used to receiving content that we have to look to understand it deeper. I find it refreshing to have an image casually in front of you as entertainment.
BA They would only get printed on special occasions, but they hang a majority in the restroom.
UDÖ It’s an excellent place to announce. I am also always confused with the promotion of parties because my favorite bar in Istanbul doesn’t even have a sign. If the vibes are good, people come. So you opened SSHH as a community space and also used your art to promote a club. You seem very supportive of places where people gather during the night and form a collective atmosphere.
BA Most of the stuff happens during the night because people work during the day. I was always interested in culture and the community that forms around it. If those people wanted to make a lot of money, they wouldn’t have opened a small club in Brooklyn. I used to play in a band and organize concerts. I always loved this energy put into an event that only happens for a day, and it is over.
UDÖ Tell me about this zine series you organized called Graphic Interviews For Graphic Artists (GIFGA), since you describe yourself as a person not so articulate with words but with images.
BA Honestly, I just started doing it for fun. I liked the idea of people having a dialogue back and forth with images without any text. People sometimes send more abstract drawings and sometimes more literal ones. I would work on it every two years, and the last one I did was in 2020. I haven’t thought of a new one, so maybe this project is also over. I am the sort of person that I retire from projects once I do them for multiple years, and it doesn’t have the same energy anymore.
BA Projects for music. I have to listen, and there is no point in taking the job if I don’t feel a connection with the music. The only thing I always say yes, unless I am too busy, is editorial illustrations for magazines or newspapers. Even if it is an article that I am disconnected, I learn something new by reading and engaging with it. It helps me investigate the world. Similarly, I am illustrating a book for a Palestinian writing festival. Since I am not Palestinian, there is a lot of research and investigation to make sense of the situation. In addition, I am connecting a lot of the writing by making the photographs more graphic.
UDÖ Your last project, though, was a queer travel guide called Sassy Planet, published with Nick Schiarizzi, Harish Bhandari, and David Dodge.
BA Initially, we were doing it as a website named for-bottoms, but Prestel publishing contacted us to publish it. Our original blog only focused on small cities, but the publisher asked us to add larger cities to make it more comprehensive and commercial. We had a character on our website called Butt-tom, like a bot but shaped like a butt. It didn’t end up in the final book but tells you about the tone of our blog.
UDÖ How was the initial reception of Sassy Planet for you, emotionally?
BA That is a complicated question. We literally did a traveling book, but Covid hit, and people couldn’t travel. It didn’t make that much sense to promote it. It was just bad timing. We had all these ideas about traveling to promote it or even going to those locations to photograph a party that day when we were doing the book. It ended up using archival images.
I don’t think there will be a second edition because we have already covered 40 gay-friendly cities from small to big.
UDÖ When you were young, was there a place you traveled that you found very gay-friendly?
BA I grew up across the river from Lisbon. I feel like I only felt more comfortable when I started traveling to other cities in Spain or Germany. Being gay in the closet, you overthink everything. I was always afraid to go to gay bars in Portugal, knowing I may be seen by someone I know. Lisbon being a smaller city, stressed me out. The fact that nobody knows you in a place you travel relieves that pressure. Eventually, when I came out, I was like: “I want to go to all the gay bars.”. But I only came out in New York, so I can’t say much about Portugal. There is this one gay bar I go to when I go there for Christmas.
UDÖ How do you deal with conflict?
BA
UDÖ What makes you laugh?
BA
UDÖ What makes you laugh?
BA
this interview is edited for clarity and concision.
follow Braulio Amado
interview by Utkan Dora Öncül
Spark Interview-018