People of Ibiza: Guillermo Romero Parra & Aline de Laforcade

Guillermo Romero Parra, director and owner, GalerÍa Parra & Romero.

An element of Ibiza’s heritage that has always attracted me is its importance as a meeting point for intellectuals. In the 1930s the island drew writers and artists like Walter Benjamin, Raoul Hausmann and Tristan Tzara and I have always been fascinated by Ibiza’s ability to absorb and inspire new ideas. After my art history PhD I worked at Christie’s in London and then at the White Cube gallery and Victoria Miro. My father was a gallerist in Madrid and in 2005 I decided to develop the concept of the gallery and make it more international. I have been coming to Ibiza since I was a child and knew that I wanted a presence on the island. My aim has always been to contribute to the art history scene in Ibiza by creating a cultural impact and bringing interesting people – museum directors, collectors, sculptors. These are people who understand the role that Ibiza has played in shaping the contemporary art world of today, and they understand that music and freedom are inextricably linked to the island’s creative scene. In our original warehouse space, we are able to produce museum-scale exhibitions. Last year we opened the smaller gallery in Santa Gertrudis in order to have a year-round presence. Ibiza still retains a very particular essence because of the non-conformist people who live here. On this island people have the liberty to be themselves and that is a rare thing. I think perhaps the island is even more fascinating now than it was in the past.’

Aline de Laforcade, weaver and fibre artist.

‘I am from everywhere and nowhere. From my birth in Beirut, I kept moving – Saudi Arabia, Australia, New York, Paris, London, Brussels, Monaco. When I arrived in Ibiza in 2010, I said, “How come nobody told me about this place?” Because I felt it had everything of me. I’m very multifaceted. I’m from a very old-school, traditional, aristocratic French family but I’d lived for a long time in the East Village in New York and been a cyber hippie. There was a part of me that was sick of everything sophisticated, and I just wanted simple and elemental. I fell into weaving by chance – I wanted something to do with my hands and it became my authentic, intuitive, silent language through which I merge timelines, bringing primitive history into the contemporary world, because the process itself encapsulates the roots of humanity. In this digitalized world we are drawn to our ancestral origins. As a child I was very drawn to themes in the film Mad Max – that as humans we need to re-learn the skills we have lost. I’m self-taught and use very raw materials in my work. After such a nomadic existence, this immediate connection with nature and indigenous craft has given me a very defined sense of space and time. I work on a primitive frame loom that allows me to tame the materials in the way that they want or need to be tamed, but the raw fibres direct the outcome. The textile artist Anni Albers once said, “Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done.” Weaving has given me a sense of belonging, enabling me to grow roots. It came from trying something once and never letting go.’