“Without enslaving the text I have tried to bring my bit to the agenda”
- Antton Olariaga is a former accomplice of Jakoba Errekondo on the Luna and Planta agenda. To learn more about the creation process, we interviewed the usurbildarra cartoonist. They say it has no garden, but the back of the agenda says it has created a beautiful harvest in the exchange of these years.
Collaborating animals are the subject of this year’s agenda. Have you been easier to draw than vegetables?
Well, when I was told in the first call that we had to make bugs and insects and beasts, I was scared to death. I thought, "Do we have to make a full agenda full of insects?" But then, speaking to Jakoba and clarifying that it was going to be an illustration of every month, I said, "We will have to treat these animals well."
And after that scare, where did he do it?
I have always liked piztiaries, animals and medieval texts, and that gave me the clue. In the piztiaries, animals appeared, each with their own personality, performing an action, with friends or enemies, surrounded by plants… I decided to go around, thinking about what identity would give each animal and what action and place it had to do with that identity.
What is collaboration in the creative process, that composition of texts and images?
The flesh is always given by Jakoba, she knows, I'm an ignorant. So the protagonist of every month has given me that, and explain what every animal does, what characteristics it has, etc. With all this data, I've set up a scene in relation to each other's personality. For example, the spider has a network that today is the Internet. Well, there I put the spider with all its arms, looking for bugs on computers. You have to always have a branching point, if you can't be boring, and I guess the reader will also thank you. I therefore try to adorn and dignify with dignity the essence of the agenda, but not being a slave of the text, but contributing and somehow complementing my vision.
He said he has no garden, but has been working on this garden-related agenda for many years. What have you received from this work?
On the one hand, the relationship, that personal contact with Jakoba. I like to discuss with him, “what do you think of this and what else…?” This is how we act. However, my starting point is ignorance, because I know nothing about the garden. So I'm going to study and look for the right formulas. In the end, besides being friends, Jakoba and I have already become accomplices.
This video shows a special presentation of the Ilargia eta Landariak agenda, held in Alegia: The interventions of Jakoba Errekondo and Antton Olariaga, the explanations of biologist Iñaki Sanz Azkue and the bertsolaris Unai and Eñaut Agirren singing old verses:
