Interviews
Cristian Bravo
Cristian Bravo is a Barcelona-based multidisciplinary artist and photographer. Through his lens, he captures and documents the abstract and the unseen, portraying places, people, and fleeting moments of life on earth, an experience we all share.
Rooted in skateboarding and deeply connected to street culture, Cris has photographed daily life across Europe and the United States for over a decade, translating his distinctive perspective into fashion, sport, documentary work, and the design of furniture and garments.
He is represented by the Swiss gallery Window14 and has collaborated with brands including Nike, Rassvet, Rapha, Obey, Polaroid, Miss Claire Sullivan, and FTC. His work has been exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco in San Francisco, at Unseen Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and at Window14 in Geneva, Switzerland. At precisely the wrong time and exactly the wrong place, Cris invites us on a journey into “life today.”
Your work captures intimate, almost invisible moments in everyday life. How do you train your eye to recognize when something ordinary holds deeper emotional or symbolic weight?
The answer is simple, I’ve been looking at the world everyday for the past 15 years. I try to find a balance between people’s happiest and saddest days, all mixed with moments where nothing or maybe not even no one is happening. It all belongs to the experience of life. “Life on earth” is the only category of pictures im interested in, the ones who live it know that this whole experience only holds deep emotional value, and if you don’t then it means you just exist. Emotional value lays in the surface of everyone and everything you look at, you just need to look from the right angle. I used to look for beautiful subjects to photograph, not anymore. With every photograph i take these days im only looking for a new kind of beauty, one that needs to be photographed in order to be discovered. I’m searching for the unknown look of the beauty of the future.
Coming from a strong skateboarding and street culture background, how has that environment shaped the way you move through space, observe people, and anticipate moments as a photographer?
Skateboarding was for me the vehicle to understanding that objects deserve a second look. A bench is no longer a piece of furniture when you are standing on a skateboard. Skateboarding is a magical thing which acts as a filter for reality. Skateboarding is the tool which acts as a key to a secret world where everything becomes new. A simple set of stairs or a handrail or a curb, even a crack on the floor. Overtime i understood that a skateboard and a camera exactly the same object to me, it just has a different shape. Tools which help us interact with the world ans transform it into whatever we want it to be.
I’m searching for the unknown look of the beauty of the future.
Your images often feel like fragments of a larger, unseen narrative. When you photograph, are you consciously constructing a story, or are you more interested in preserving ambiguity?
The photographing act has become some sort of a meditative activity i do without really trying to express anything. I just say yes with my camera to whatever is in front of me and decide what im keeping by pressing the shutter. Back then i used to go on long walks trying to find something, but overtime i realised that in every character, place and object i photographed was looking for myself. These days photography has become a deeper form of exploration which search happens around me in the physical world but also inside of me. Many times i say to myself “if what im doing doesn’t feel like an experiment i wont be making any discovery”
You’ve collaborated with brands like Nike and Rassvet while maintaining a distinct artistic voice. How do you balance commercial expectations with your personal, poetic approach to image-making.
I’m lucky to work with clients whose commercial interest goes beyond selling a pair of shoes. I never wanted to be a photographer, I studied fine arts and illustration, and even tho i dropped university my goal as a person has always been to make my life interesting, my photographic work is some sort of result from that. Brands rarely hire me because they need a photographer for their campaign. I work with clients who are looking to elevate their projects by collaborating with people who can add artistic value to their name and just like me believe that together we can find an image that has never seen before. Thats my main job when i shoot a project.
Your work has been exhibited internationally, from Europe to the United States. Have you noticed differences in how audiences interpret your photographs across cultures?
There’s something interesting about that yes, seeing people’s reactions from an outsider’s point of view whenever my work is being physically displayed or even online is just a world scale reaction to “the greener grass”. I noticed all my European viewers always connect more with my work produced in America and same happens the other way around overseas. It all comes down to thinking that the world is more interesting out there and not where you are based. It’s just a matter of interest in the end, photography offers us the possibility to travel with our eyes to impossible and distant places, through space and even time. We all wish for a better time and place. The never ending search of “different”.
For someone just starting out in photography today, surrounded by social media and constant visual noise, what would you genuinely advise them to focus on in order to develop an authentic voice and lasting body of work?
My message to you future photographer: The words you are about to read will stick for you all your life. The world doesnt need more photographers, there’s plenty of them. The camera, lens and film stock don’t matter. But no one else is like you,because no one else is you. Take advantage of that. You are unique and perfect, you don’t need to become anything or anyone. You don’t need a flight ticket to travel the world, leave the house, walk around the corner. The world has been waiting just for you to look at it, the rest of us are all just characters from it. Live life and live it on the edge. Don’t play safe. Show the people of the future how your unique life looked. Today is the only chance you get to photograph the present. Forget taking pictures of vintage cars. You are in charge of defining the looks of the beauty of the future. Show the world something new. Look and you will find.
