Sunday Pick: Barcelona: streetwear with a political twist | Far Flung
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Hey, TED Talks Daily listeners. I'm Elise Hugh. Today, we're bringing you another Sunday Pick, where we share an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, handpicked by us for you. When I hear Barcelona, I immediately think of the vivid colors and the whimsical lines and shapes of Gaudi's architecture, Picasso's paintings. and flamenco music and dance. But there's another art scene in this famous Spanish city that's breaking into the mainstream from the margins. In this episode of our podcast, Far Flung, host Salim Rashamwala introduces us to Barcelona's street vendors known as Monteros, who are bringing a political twist to the art of streetwear. Listen to how this group of people, often immigrants without legal protections or rights to work in Spain, fought to form a union to gain the voice they needed.
and ended up creating a global and people-centered fashion label that highlights human rights in the process. To hear more unique ideas and stories from around the globe, check out Far Flung, available wherever you get your podcasts. Now on to the episode, right after a quick break.
So I'm watching this streetwear brand commercial. It starts with a guy running on the beach and some inspirational quotes from a narrator. Believe in yourself. If you want it, go and take it.
Just do it.
And then it takes one of the harder turns I've ever seen in a commercial to reveal that he is running on the beach toward a boat full of people who look distressed. It looks like a migration situation and there is a new narrator who is now visible. She's a black woman in a room full of other black people. She's saying, life is not a sneaker commercial. We know the race is full of traps. We didn't come here in search of a dignified life for us and for our loved ones. We came here to change the rules of the game, to make them fairer for everyone. Because it's not just about doing it, but doing it right. This brand, Topmanta, it's unlike any other streetwear brand I've come across. Take a streetwear brand like, say, Supreme.
which started in a small 1990s New York City storefront and was marketed with counterculture messaging. Right now, it's actually a big player in a huge multimillion-dollar industry. Meanwhile, in Barcelona, a group of street vendors who'd been selling goods on sidewalks have found a way to double down on streetwear's outsider roots, birthing this brand known as Top Manta.
It's the first time in the world that a union of people without papers have achieved what we've done in a few years.
I'm Salim Reshanwala, and from TED, this is Far Flung. In every episode, we visit a different location to understand ideas that flow from that place. And today, a story from the streets of Barcelona, where a group of immigrants changed the game and, in the process... gave us a new perspective on what it means to belong.
I was in the same situation as all the African youth who, at the age of 18, have to work and support their families and don't have the opportunity to do so.
That is Lamine. He came to Spain by boat, along with other migrants.
And that's Mark Sanchez, my co-producer, a Barcelona native. Hey, Salim. So, Mark, where does Top Manta's story begin?
Well, it starts with a few guys who came to Barcelona from West Africa, more specifically from Senegal. And Lamine says one of the main reasons why so many people left was because the local government started to allow illegal fishing practices.
This massive arrival was also caused by corrupt governments selling our entire sea.
Fishermen used to use their boats to fish for a week or three days. They would return with lots of fish. But now, there are European boats fishing in our seas using bombs and nets. They've screwed up the whole sea, and now there is no fish.
Now they have sold all the sea and there is no fish in Senegal.
Many fishermen have decided to transport people coming here to Europe.
Like a lot of people around the world, when prospects disappeared, Lamine decided to try his luck elsewhere. But why is Barcelona an attractive place for migrant workers in the first place?
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