Dear Shaded Viewers,
I met Ivo Barraza Castaneda aka Chicken Turtle in Venice when I was there as a guest of Alexandra Mas, the artist, who was walking through Venice at the time of the Venice Biennale wearing a dress made out of all the plastic trash she had collected over a short period of time. Ivo was one of the students that was helping with this project. For a short time Ivo was a correspondent to ASVOF and like he states in the interview I encouraged him to open up his IG account and that was the starting point for his explosion on social media. Since then I’ve been watching the development of his career and asked him to curate the TikTok installation at ASVOFF 14.
I’ve watched Chicken Turtle since his graduation from school to his e commerce shop. He cannot remember a time when he was not designing and experimenting with clothes. For him it is a never ending joy. Although he has experience with factories and in fact really likes working with them he also likes the idea of making limited editions and original pieces. He is no stranger to upcycling, even the coat he is wearing in the above video started out as a jacket designed by someone else that he felt was not cut in a way that really functioned the way one’s jacket should. So he cut it apart and along with re-figuring it he also embellished it. As a child in El Salvador he used to attack the clothes in his aunt’s closet, cutting them up at first to create his own unique back pack. A few decades later he is still his own version of Edward Scissorhands.
You can follow him https://www.instagram.com/chickenturtleparis/
or visit his e shop: https://chickenturtle.shop/
Later,
Diane
