Estela Moreno: Sculpting the Soul of Paper

"When we intervene with paper, it plays with light, it speaks to us through its forms. Paper, although we do not consider it a noble material, endures and transports our history through time. It accompanies us in our daily lives and, although technology is imposing itself, it remains present in our lives in one way or another." Night has fallen on the street and in the Bar, the faint voices of Thee Sacred Souls resonate while the locals gather around tables or at the front of the bar. There, precisely, with a London Mule gin and tonic in hand, is Estela Moreno, paper engineer and creative soul of Cartoncita, a design studio specializing in origami.

"The art of paper folding makes something seemingly flat and rigid suddenly acquire movement and become a three-dimensional object. Time interferes with it, modifying its smell and color, but respecting its folds, something fascinating that makes me feel like a child with her toys when I am working in the workshop," explains the artist who, about twelve years ago, left a position as deputy director of a corporate banking office, "a job that I was not bad at all" to dedicate herself to her vocation, "which has become my profession."

--And how did you take such a categorical step to leave banking to dedicate yourself to the art of paper folding?

--That world did not suit me, and I had always been interested in art, fashion, and music, so I decided to bet on my passion. I started fashion studies and then got into the world of theater costume design, looking for something very creative and not routine.

From there, Estela Moreno moved on to set design and it was when making the models that "something innate emerged in her: paper, cardboard, flowed through my hands with total naturalness and made me enjoy and lose track of time. That awakened a need to learn and experiment, like an insatiable curiosity".

The patron does not hesitate to call that moment crucial, as it was when the door opened to what would eventually become her modus vivendi and the absolute axis of her artistic activity.

It's not child's play

"The truth is that it has been a journey of much work and sacrifices, but when you do what you like, it doesn't weigh you down! One thing has led to another, one job to another, and thus a path of more than a decade full of very diverse projects has been woven, all important, because all of them have taught me something and have made me grow," asserts the artist, who does not hide her pride in her perseverance in the goal of developing her activity around origami, "which many still believe is a child's thing." Something that, 120 years ago, Miguel de Unamuno himself lamented in the appendix to his essential novel, Amor y pedagogía.

Fortunately, it seems that snobbery towards artistic intervention in paper is being relegated to minority spheres, as demonstrated by the fact that major brands have noticed the value of the artist's work, who fondly remembers a project for the pop-up store that Hermès set up on Paseo de Gràcia, "a job that gave me self-confidence to know that I was on the right path and that served as a perfect showcase for designers, design studios, or event companies to get to know my work."

Another project in which Estela Moreno was involved was when IKEA launched its campaign to withdraw the physical catalog to make way for the digital one. "I spent the confinement locked in my apartment surrounded by a mountain of the brand's catalogs, folding them into paper birds to flood all the stores with them." Coming out of the pandemic, Massimo Dutti commissioned her forty window displays with origami flowers for its main stores around the world. "It was two months folding paper flowers with a small team under my charge," she recalls with a grimace of frank satisfaction.

Stopping seems to be forbidden for the local, who announces that she has worked on the new spot for Lays, where Leo Messi is seen folding bags of the potato chip brand. "We have also created the covers of Mario Vargas Llosa's next five books, we are preparing an intervention at Madrid Design Week and we will collaborate with Sabadell Japan Week."

Everything the city contains

Like so many Barcelona residents, artist Estela Moreno is also pained by the city's loss of character, "how impersonal it has become, full of bars, shops, and spaces designed for the insatiable mass of tourists that floods every corner, and that have left behind the places that shaped its character."

And yet, she doesn't hesitate to assert that "Barcelona is my city! I grew up in it, it's hard for me to imagine living anywhere else." And she takes a long, thoughtful sip, before declaring: "sometimes I think I'm not aware of everything it has and offers."

Then, Estela Moreno begins to recall that beloved city, with so many soundtracks to exult and wear out shoe soles: "the Harlem, the jam sessions at Taller de Música, the London bar, the Café Royal... Thousands of memories, friends, moments, encounters in all those places come to mind."

--Hey! And in this one, right?

--Of course, of course, in this one too--, she replies with a wide smile.