Sarah met Cristina Guadalupe for burlesque and beer at the Galapagos Art Space.  Cristina is an architect and artist who recently moved to Brooklyn from her native Barcelona.

Her short film Moose Youth will screen at Powershovel Art Space in Tokyo this May and in Los Angeles in July.  She is currently working on a new short called Le Dauphin, featuring fellow diva Peekaboo Pointe, which will show at gallerie du jour – agnes b in Paris from September 9-23.

Sarah: What is your favorite building in New York?

Cristina: The Guggenheim.  There is no building in the world that achieves what the Guggenheim does.  Even if you have been many times, as you approach the building it remains so alien, so crazy and unexpected.  It has gone far beyond what Frank Lloyd Wright could have expected.  You cannot display art in the Guggenheim or curate a show without taking the space itself into account.  Even though it is all white, it is anything but a white box.

Sarah: What is the purpose of architecture?

Cristina: Vitruvius said that architecture enables things to happen and contains the activity.  It’s not necessary to construct a solid thing.  What is most important is making the social interaction that happens in a place the best it can be.  Like a piazza in an old city is a political space, a void that creates a place where people can gather and discuss.  Architecture is not solid; it’s void.  It’s about letting it happen.  Today, though, this is getting more complex because people gather more and more in virtual spaces.

Sarah: Do you see any connections between your study of architecture and your filmmaking?

Cristina: Moose Youth was a cinematographic essay about a place. There was this space I fell in love with – a space between walls with no roof and the F train circling around.  It gave me the same feeling I felt with a Plaza de Toros.  Although the film had some sort of structure – introduction of the character, development, and end – it was more photography in motion than a narrative film.  It was also about how at the end of ourselves there’s this space where no one gets in, not our husband, not our mother, not our friends.

Sarah: Tell me about your next film.

Cristina: Le Dauphin was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne of France and is also my main character, Victor, a smart, French 19-year-old boy.  It’s filled with crazy Brooklyn characters.  It’s like Alice in Wonderland meets Don Quixote meets the Catholic journey down into the Inferno.

Sarah: I can’t wait to see it!  How do you make the films?

Cristina: I use a handheld Japanese camera called a Harimezumi.  It’s digital but the quality is like Super 8.  It’s low res.  Moose Youth is silent.  I was going to do music, but the images alone are so powerful. Le Dauphin will have some dialog and music.

Sarah: At the end of the day, do you consider yourself an architect or an artist?

Cristina: I’m not 100% architect or 100% visual artist.  Sometimes I get worried that I’ll be a dilletante. Jean Cocteau, who is my biggest influence, was accused of being a dilletante, because he was a painter, a writer, a cinematographer, and a poet.  So I guess I can’t worry about it.  I feel deep inside of me that everything I do is just the expression of my art.  I feel the same feeling whether I am designing a building or making a film. Cocteau said that all were expressions of his poetry.

Sarah: Aren’t films innately different, though, because they unfold in a linear way?  A building can be approached from any angle.

Cristina: Yes and no. Above all, cinematography is creating a scenario and a place where things are going to happen. The film is not the movie itself but the invisible element you are taking back home. Cinematography is a tool for expression. Sadly the industry has turned it into a pale shadow of what it could be. This place we are trying to go: it’s where we put a platform of experimentation out there that lets many interpretations happen and new questions unfold.  Just like the void in the piazza.

THE WEDDING BAND

Go to Galapagos Art Space for the art and the space, not the cocktails.  We stuck to beer and wine, avoiding the electric blue Cosmos and scary cocktail specials such as the “Back Alley Orgasm.”  The burlesque was intoxicating enough.  Instead, here’s a cocktail I designed for Cristina’s wedding.  A week before you want to drink this, fill a sterilized jar with a cut, ripe pineapple, then fill jar with aged rum.  Let sit for a week, shaking daily, then strain and keep it in the frig.

For two cocktails, muddle together in the bottom of a shaker:

1/2 lime, cut into four pieces
1/4 ounce simple syrup (equal parts demerara sugar and water, heated to dissolve then cooled)
1/4 ounce St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram
1/4 ounce Maraschino Liqueur

Fill shaker with ice and add:

2 ounces pineapple-infused rum
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Shake very well.  Strain into two chilled flutes, filling glasses halfway.  Top each cocktail with:

approx. 2 ounces ice-cold NV champagne

Viva Cristina!