Translator: Gisela Giardino Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
That’s me.
I was born in Quito, Ecuador.
And I grew up in the city.
I was a city girl until I turned seven.
It was then when my parents moved to the countryside,
to a valley, 40-minutes away from the city.
There I learned to plunge into the bushes and the hills
to explore and observe insects.
Spiders in particular.
I was so mad about spiders that by the time I was ten
I had a collection of 5,000 living spiders
that I kept in glass vases.
No doubt, this was my favorite.
In the world, 1 out of 10 people have insect phobia.
And 3 out of 10 have a phobia of spiders.
Do you see that happy face? (Laughter)
I was not one of them.
And you will understand that avoiding teenage bullying
with a hobby such as this one, was no easy a task.
So I did what most of us do:
I left my hobby to try to fit in.
So I graduated from school, specialized in physics and mathematics,
I later began studying graphic design,
which was a new career in Ecuador.
And I think it was a good decision.
However, since everything comes around in life,
one night many years later, I was coming back from the beach.
And when I reached a cloudy forest
like one and a half hour before arriving to Quito,
I made a stop at this gas station.
Suddenly, I couldn’t believe my eyes,
There were millions of moths on a wall.
And some others flying around the light.
I got off my car and got closer, and then it hit me.
That little girl, the frustrated entomologist
I concealed for so many years, emerged and came back to life.
And then, everything made sense.
I went back home and I decided to come back.
I picked a camera and a couple of weeks later
I was back at the gas station.
But, what do you think happened?
There was no one single moth to be found there!
What’s up? Not even one!
I didn’t imagine that, I had seen them there.
It happens that moths while inside the forest,
flying at a constant angle relative to the moonlight.
But when there is no moon; or in its early phases
–crescent or waning moon–
moths go searching for that light and end up in inhabited areas.
There’s when they remain revolving around light bulbs.
As everybody tells me:
“Moths! They are horrible!”
That’s what you are thinking now.
True. Moths hold a reputation for being a plague, dark, furry and ugly.
But in fact, as we always see them behind the light, we see them like this.
And when we get closer to observe them,
we find that they hide some fantastic designs.
For example, look at this one.
This is one of the first I saw.
I nicknamed her Carolina Herrera.
(Laughter)
Isn’t she beautiful?
Cow.
This one I named “Little Stitch”,
as she seem to have a surrounding backstitch.
I loved them, as I was finding thousands.
Each one more beautiful than the other.
From complex to unbelievable designs.
Some iridescent, some geometric,
other minimalist,
more exotic,
more chaotic …
thousands!
And as I continued to observe and admire, I kept on learning about them.
For example, do you know there’s more than 150,000 species of moths worldwide?
Crazy, right?
Note that I mentioned moths, not species of butterflies.
Unlike moths, butterflies are diurnal,
they have an appendix at the end of their antenna
and when they perch they fold their wings upwards.
Moths are for the most part nocturnal.
In their antenna they have like a feather.
And when they perch, they open and rest their wings downwards.
That’s how I started telling them apart.
I chased after them with my camera, never losing one single chance
to get out of work to go contemplate them.
And they posed for me, they were very friendly.
Unlike butterflies,
they didn’t fly away but stay there.
I’d talk to them, spoil them, open their little wings,
and it was turning more and more fun every time.
Even my family and friends sometimes thought
that I was going a bit crazy … (Laughter)
because I was talking to moths.
And in some way it was true, it became a bit of an obsession,
a passion I couldn’t put aside.
So I thought: “I’ve got to do something.”
And I began to make digital illustrations of these little bugs.
Because I wanted to show in some way this I could see in the light bulb.
This movement, this repetition.
So I decided to create this patterns.
But it turns out that nobody believed me,
when I showed this to colleagues or friends,
I’d say: “see how beautiful these moths are!”
“No, that’s not real. They are moths, moths are ugly.”
Not even my biologist friends really believed me.
So I decided to do the same but including photos,
to make sure there would be no doubt
that they were real, they existed and each one was prettier than the other.
And that’s how I began this study on the symmetry of the wings,
their composition, and details each one had.
I would play with movements and colors, which was fascinating.
I would love to see how they created this contrast
with the places they would perch on.
Wood, concrete, metal, for example.
It was not the romantic little butterfly that flies among flowers.
These were more underground beings, more urban in their making.
And this made them beautiful to my eyes.
More and more beautiful.
So that’s how I spent four years doing this in my free time.
And when I had enough, I thought:
“I’ll make a book, I’ll show this to my people.”
So I ventured into finding a publisher.
I said, “the book’s title will be ‘Pachanga’.”
Pachanga as a synonym of party, of rumba.
I used that analogy with those nocturnal ladies
that would go out all dressed up to do the light bulb dance.
So then a small German publisher decided to take on the challenge.
We worked for about a year in the book.
And when it was ready
they even came with the surprise that they would make a Japanese edition.
Something I never imagined to happen.
Just as I didn’t imagine
that many people after this, would write to me
saying that they would never kill a moth again.
Finally, moths would show their beauty and become a surprise for a lot of people.
This power of the unexpected became a seductive force
that caused a lot of curiosity.
The book went from being a design book
to an object that teased you into observation.
To observe any life form, not only moths.
People first observed then contemplated,
and caressed the pages of the book,
creating that feeling of closeness
and even affection for those weird, invisible creatures.
That’s how I could ratify that images
hold the power of touching our soul.
And that was for me one of my biggest rewards.
What came afterwards?
I started making some experiments
applying the designs to objects, products and other things.
At the same time, new offers came in
to be part of book projects
in collaboration with biologists, photographers, naturalists and scientists
to rescue, in some way, other weird creatures.
Namely, frogs, whales, bears.
They also invited me to talk about biodiversity,
about climate change, conservation and the popularization of science.
This in some way allowed me to keep on with my flight,
this exploring adventure where I went back to this wonderful exercise
of stopping for a moment, getting closer and observing.
To later interpret what my eyes saw.
I have the privilege of living in Ecuador, a very diverse country.
While small in size, the country has a lot of ecosystems and microclimates.
To be able to depict through my graphics this abundance, generosity and richness
and that parade of forms and colors,
makes of my career something meaningful in my life.
And that’s what I love.
In that flight, these invisible beings always show up again,
these creatures nobody see.
My spiders, for example.
Or the bugs that go unnoticed down the forest.
That’s when I love to observe the details
and draw them back for people to see them at a bigger scale.
So I go back flying to my moths
which are always there, they never leave.
Because I think there’s Pachanga for a long while and for everybody.
And I ponder on this little girl who one day dropped her passion
to avoid being rejected.
I’d say to her now, to open her wings and go out exploring, fearlessly.
Because after all, it’s not that bad to be a weird creature.
Thank you.
(Applause)
That’s me.
I was born in Quito, Ecuador.
And I grew up in the city.
I was a city girl until I turned seven.
It was then when my parents moved to the countryside,
to a valley, 40-minutes away from the city.
There I learned to plunge into the bushes and the hills
to explore and observe insects.
Spiders in particular.
I was so mad about spiders that by the time I was ten
I had a collection of 5,000 living spiders
that I kept in glass vases.
No doubt, this was my favorite.
In the world, 1 out of 10 people have insect phobia.
And 3 out of 10 have a phobia of spiders.
Do you see that happy face? (Laughter)
I was not one of them.
And you will understand that avoiding teenage bullying
with a hobby such as this one, was no easy a task.
So I did what most of us do:
I left my hobby to try to fit in.
So I graduated from school, specialized in physics and mathematics,
I later began studying graphic design,
which was a new career in Ecuador.
And I think it was a good decision.
However, since everything comes around in life,
one night many years later, I was coming back from the beach.
And when I reached a cloudy forest
like one and a half hour before arriving to Quito,
I made a stop at this gas station.
Suddenly, I couldn’t believe my eyes,
There were millions of moths on a wall.
And some others flying around the light.
I got off my car and got closer, and then it hit me.
That little girl, the frustrated entomologist
I concealed for so many years, emerged and came back to life.
And then, everything made sense.
I went back home and I decided to come back.
I picked a camera and a couple of weeks later
I was back at the gas station.
But, what do you think happened?
There was no one single moth to be found there!
What’s up? Not even one!
I didn’t imagine that, I had seen them there.
It happens that moths while inside the forest,
flying at a constant angle relative to the moonlight.
But when there is no moon; or in its early phases
–crescent or waning moon–
moths go searching for that light and end up in inhabited areas.
There’s when they remain revolving around light bulbs.
As everybody tells me:
“Moths! They are horrible!”
That’s what you are thinking now.
True. Moths hold a reputation for being a plague, dark, furry and ugly.
But in fact, as we always see them behind the light, we see them like this.
And when we get closer to observe them,
we find that they hide some fantastic designs.
For example, look at this one.
This is one of the first I saw.
I nicknamed her Carolina Herrera.
(Laughter)
Isn’t she beautiful?
Cow.
This one I named “Little Stitch”,
as she seem to have a surrounding backstitch.
I loved them, as I was finding thousands.
Each one more beautiful than the other.
From complex to unbelievable designs.
Some iridescent, some geometric,
other minimalist,
more exotic,
more chaotic …
thousands!
And as I continued to observe and admire, I kept on learning about them.
For example, do you know there’s more than 150,000 species of moths worldwide?
Crazy, right?
Note that I mentioned moths, not species of butterflies.
Unlike moths, butterflies are diurnal,
they have an appendix at the end of their antenna
and when they perch they fold their wings upwards.
Moths are for the most part nocturnal.
In their antenna they have like a feather.
And when they perch, they open and rest their wings downwards.
That’s how I started telling them apart.
I chased after them with my camera, never losing one single chance
to get out of work to go contemplate them.
And they posed for me, they were very friendly.
Unlike butterflies,
they didn’t fly away but stay there.
I’d talk to them, spoil them, open their little wings,
and it was turning more and more fun every time.
Even my family and friends sometimes thought
that I was going a bit crazy … (Laughter)
because I was talking to moths.
And in some way it was true, it became a bit of an obsession,
a passion I couldn’t put aside.
So I thought: “I’ve got to do something.”
And I began to make digital illustrations of these little bugs.
Because I wanted to show in some way this I could see in the light bulb.
This movement, this repetition.
So I decided to create this patterns.
But it turns out that nobody believed me,
when I showed this to colleagues or friends,
I’d say: “see how beautiful these moths are!”
“No, that’s not real. They are moths, moths are ugly.”
Not even my biologist friends really believed me.
So I decided to do the same but including photos,
to make sure there would be no doubt
that they were real, they existed and each one was prettier than the other.
And that’s how I began this study on the symmetry of the wings,
their composition, and details each one had.
I would play with movements and colors, which was fascinating.
I would love to see how they created this contrast
with the places they would perch on.
Wood, concrete, metal, for example.
It was not the romantic little butterfly that flies among flowers.
These were more underground beings, more urban in their making.
And this made them beautiful to my eyes.
More and more beautiful.
So that’s how I spent four years doing this in my free time.
And when I had enough, I thought:
“I’ll make a book, I’ll show this to my people.”
So I ventured into finding a publisher.
I said, “the book’s title will be ‘Pachanga’.”
Pachanga as a synonym of party, of rumba.
I used that analogy with those nocturnal ladies
that would go out all dressed up to do the light bulb dance.
So then a small German publisher decided to take on the challenge.
We worked for about a year in the book.
And when it was ready
they even came with the surprise that they would make a Japanese edition.
Something I never imagined to happen.
Just as I didn’t imagine
that many people after this, would write to me
saying that they would never kill a moth again.
Finally, moths would show their beauty and become a surprise for a lot of people.
This power of the unexpected became a seductive force
that caused a lot of curiosity.
The book went from being a design book
to an object that teased you into observation.
To observe any life form, not only moths.
People first observed then contemplated,
and caressed the pages of the book,
creating that feeling of closeness
and even affection for those weird, invisible creatures.
That’s how I could ratify that images
hold the power of touching our soul.
And that was for me one of my biggest rewards.
What came afterwards?
I started making some experiments
applying the designs to objects, products and other things.
At the same time, new offers came in
to be part of book projects
in collaboration with biologists, photographers, naturalists and scientists
to rescue, in some way, other weird creatures.
Namely, frogs, whales, bears.
They also invited me to talk about biodiversity,
about climate change, conservation and the popularization of science.
This in some way allowed me to keep on with my flight,
this exploring adventure where I went back to this wonderful exercise
of stopping for a moment, getting closer and observing.
To later interpret what my eyes saw.
I have the privilege of living in Ecuador, a very diverse country.
While small in size, the country has a lot of ecosystems and microclimates.
To be able to depict through my graphics this abundance, generosity and richness
and that parade of forms and colors,
makes of my career something meaningful in my life.
And that’s what I love.
In that flight, these invisible beings always show up again,
these creatures nobody see.
My spiders, for example.
Or the bugs that go unnoticed down the forest.
That’s when I love to observe the details
and draw them back for people to see them at a bigger scale.
So I go back flying to my moths
which are always there, they never leave.
Because I think there’s Pachanga for a long while and for everybody.
And I ponder on this little girl who one day dropped her passion
to avoid being rejected.
I’d say to her now, to open her wings and go out exploring, fearlessly.
Because after all, it’s not that bad to be a weird creature.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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