EL MERCADILLO
CLARA MANTEL Puerto Madryn, Argentina. 1988
“VENDER AQUÍ ME HA VINCULADO CON UN PÚBLICO EUROPEO QUE YA CONOCE ESTE PRODUCTO”
In 2019 I went to live in Australia on a working holiday visa. At a flea market in Sydney I saw a stall selling waxed fabrics. I bought a couple and used them a lot at home. I didn’t tend to use a lot of plastic but they were great for wrapping the typical piece of fruit or cheese you normally keep in the fridge in cling film.
En 2019 me fui a vivir a Australia con una visa working holiday. En un mercadillo de Sídney vi un puesto que vendía telas enceradas. Me compré un par y las utilicé bastante en casa. No solía usar mucho plástico, pero iban genial para envolver el típico trozo de fruta o de queso que guardas en la nevera dentro de un papel film. La visa me caducó justo antes de la pandemia. Volví a Europa en marzo [de 2020]. Estuve en Andorra hasta mayo y luego regresé a Ibiza. No pude recuperar mi trabajo y tampoco tenía derecho a ERTE. ¡Nadie se imaginaba que vendría una pandemia cuando me fui a la otra parte del mundo! Durante la cuarentena, enceré las telas que había comprado en Australia. Como tenía más tiempo libre, en
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My visa ran out just before the pandemic. I went back to Europe in March [2020]. I was in Andorra until May and then I went back to Ibiza. I couldn’t get my old job back and I wasn’t entitled to any furlough payments either. Nobody had imagined a pandemic was coming when I went to the other side of the world! During lockdown, I waxed the fabrics I’d bought in Australia. As I had more free time, in November 2020 I put my savings into this project: I bought more fabrics organic, cotton, and made in France - and a wax melter. I went professional. I presented the project to Las Dalias and started at the Christmas market that year. Selling here has put me in touch with a European public that’s already familiar with this kind of product because these wrappings have been used for years in the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland. A lot of people think that Abella [“bee” in Catalan] is my surname. Some have even assumed it was my first name. My boyfriend [Josep Rabadà], who’s Catalan, and I decided to call our project Abella to link it even more closely to Ibiza. Within the limitations of an island, we try to use local products. We buy as much wax as we can from the beekeepers’ association of Ibiza. A lot of people are getting involved in recovering beehives. In addition to organic jojoba oil (imported because the shrub doesn’t grow in Spain), we use pine resin. I melt the wax sheets together with the rest of the ingredients and impregnate the fabric with this liquid, which ‘ve previously cut. The aim is to create our own print using Ibiza motifs.