Today we’d like to introduce you to Nina Caussa.
Nina, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 2009, I felt I needed a big life change. I was working as an art director and set decorator for film, doing what I love, but I felt it was time to widen my horizons and find new challenges. It was time to leave Barcelona, the city where I had lived for most of my life, and take a leap out of my comfort zone…
I started looking at set design graduate programs that could help me move my career forward. Most of the best schools were in the US but the tuition prices seemed unattainable compared to public funded high education prices back home. That was discouraging at first but as they say “there is always a way”, so I started looking for grants and scholarships. One of the very few programs that fitted my profile was the scholarship for graduate studies offered by “La Caixa.” “La Caixa” is a financial institution in Spain that dedicates part of its benefits to social initiatives like their prestigious scholarship program. The deadline was coming up and I didn’t have much time to prepare the application while working on a movie shoot 12 hours a day, so it took a lot of drive and determination to write my mission statement and prepare my tests late at night and over the weekends. It was worth it though because I was selected to be one of the forty recipients of a full scholarship for graduate studies in the US.
While researching graduate programs to apply I came across CalArts almost by chance and although it was not my initial plan I fell in love with the school and its atmosphere. CalArts is a very special place, probably unique in the world since it is an art school that combines under the same roof visual and performing arts, painting and dance, photography and music. CalArts was founded by Walt Disney in the 1960s but shortly after that, the school distanced itself from the corporate Disney family to embrace a true experimental artistic path. Nowadays, CalArts seems to have found a sweet balance between offering a unique avant-garde educational environment for young artists while presenting its alumni with real creative career opportunities.
Chris Barreca, the head of the Set Design program, has been a real mentor to me. In his program, you learn how to understand performance and storytelling from a visual point of view, so you can design effective spaces for it. Although most of his career is in theater, everything that you learn with him can easily be applied to any media and he was always open to the strangest projects that we would bring to class.
The three years at CalArts where crazy intense and challenging in many ways but also the perfect time to grow and nurture myself. At Calarts, I consolidated myself as a designer but I also became an artist. Before that, I thought of myself as a film technician, an artisan may be, and that mindset was in a way limiting myself. By the end of grad school, I felt I knew enough to take any challenge and that what I didn’t know yet I would figure it out.
When I graduated I started working in projects here in Los Angeles but also in New York, San Francisco, Europe… The quality and diversity of work opportunities here in the US kept me wanting more. In Barcelona, I had worked mainly in film but after graduating from CalArts, I opened my practice to theater, experiential design, live performance, and immersive experiences. I consider myself very lucky to work in very diverse projects. This keeps my practice very fresh and dynamic and I don’t feel restricted to only one media. My bank account would probably look much better if I was to focus on the better paying opportunities but I guess life is about choices.
Has it been a smooth road?
Los Angeles can be a tough city, especially in the world of show business and entertainment. It can be lonely, it can feel void, it can be extremely competitive and every day it challenges your self-esteem and self-confidence again and again.
The best antidote I found is to have a strong set of friends with whom I share unconditional love, support, and laughs. Friends that you can show up at their doorstep any time and for a cup of coffee or a drink. I also believe we need to dedicate time to enjoy your passions, especially those outside work! The outdoors opportunities in Southern California are just spectacular. The ocean, camping, sailing… even a Sunday morning hike in the nearby mountains can change the mood of the entire week.
As a woman, I think our present moment is at the same time a challenge and a historical moment. The changes and the awareness that the “me too” and “time’s up” movement have prompted are now unstoppable and will not be reverted, even if it still takes some time and a few setbacks. We need more women directors, executive producers, artistic directors, writers, etc., because these women can help change toxic environments and rewrite the mainstream narrative. I have worked with some brilliant, strong women writers, directors and producers that are determined to change the landscape and I am excited to be part of the change and the new reality.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I design film sets, theater sets, immersive spaces, themed bars, installations, theme parks… I design spaces that tell a story. It all starts with an idea, a play, a script, a thought… then, I work with the creative team, the director, the writer and I take that idea and translate it into a three-dimensional space. In other words, I create a space for the story to live in.
Through the use of color and texture, structures and mechanisms, gestures and details I create an environment that is inevitably adding new layers of meaning and content to the story. I bring a lot of ideas to the table, both visual and performative ideas because at the end when I am thinking of the space I am thinking of the way it will be used in the storytelling. I really enjoy working with the rest of designers -lights, costumes, video, sound- to build those worlds from scratch. Special mention to lighting designers and directors of photography without whom my work would be invisible! I like to follow projects from the very beginning to the very end to make sure that both the big ideas and the small crucial details make it to opening night.
Sometimes, I can drive directors insane because I want to understand the character ulterior motives before choosing a bedspread for their bedroom. But hey, I truly believe that our bedding choices define us.
Some of my most recent projects include a giant pop-up blanket fort for a theater show; an immersive space hidden in the Arts District that submerges you into an epic and dark story; a stylized psychological thriller film where our city becomes a mirror of a mental state and a project for Asics where we put a group of urban runners through a noir-era mystery race in downtown Los Angeles.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Los Angeles is a privileged location for anyone working in entertainment and the arts. Obviously, this is Hollywoodland, but beyond that I feel Los Angeles has become a hub for the arts in the last few years, attracting artists, collectors, festivals, initiatives, etc.
If your career is designing spaces that tell stories it doesn’t get much better than here with so many opportunities and initiatives in films, theater, theme park design, large-scale events, and new art forms.
What worries me about this city is the accelerated, unscrupulous advance of gentrification. The economic differences in American society are huge and that makes any idea of social equality very hard. When wealthier dwellers start renting or buying properties in middle or low-class neighborhoods the existing residents are pushed out and have to move further and further away from the city, making even harder their access to culture, arts, quality education, and opportunities. We as artists are very often the first gentrifiers when we are looking for affordable studio and performance spaces, so we need to find a way to be part of the solution and not the problem.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ninacaussa.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @ninacaussa
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-caussa-2867a026/
Image Credit:
Gema Galiana, Carmen Emmi, Allison Keating
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