Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Vanderput.
Hi Julia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I always say my life did not start in one place. It started in the in-between. I was born in Brazil and raised across cultures. That is probably where my obsession with subcultures and human behavior began. I watched how people build identity through the things they gather around: music, nightlife, belief and each other.
I moved to the United States young and spent most of my twenties in ad agency world in the East Coast which meant I spent most days studying places and people. What they eat for breakfast, why they choose one public transportation over another. I find this minute stuff super interesting because that’s where we reveal ourselves most. I like getting under the skin of a brand and asking what it is actually here to do. I have built strategies for global brands. The engine of my work is always the same: make it human make it culturally fit, make it matter.
In parallel my creative life kept expanding. I became a published writer. I started building installations and threw some very theatrical parties. All of my work orbits the same core idea: connection as a sacred act.
All these experiences ladder up to the same instinct, which is to create experiences, stories and strategies that make people feel more alive. And that is where I am now. Building brands in music and culture for Live Nation. Making art. Building community. Letting the work be an extension of the life I am actually living.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No. My road has had sharp turns and strange weather. I think most creative lives do. A lot of my twenties were spent unlearning the instinct to shape shift. Losing my father young shaped me in ways I am still understanding. Starting over in a new country shaped me too. And I’m wired for depth but entered an industry that values speed over depth. That can be damaging over time.
It took time to learn how to protect that part of myself while still working inside big systems. I had to learn how to keep my instincts intact. I was mostly fearful what I wanted out of my work and life was too strange or too big or too non-linear to be taken seriously. But every time I leaned into the things that made me different, those are the things that opened doors.
It’s been nothing short of interesting and I trust interesting more than easy even if it gets messy. Make meaning where you stand. Create your own shape. And let the mess shape you into someone who can hold more light.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I work at the intersection of culture, music and meaning. At the simplest level I am a writer, a brand strategist and an immersive artist. My work asks one question over and over. What makes people feel alive? Everything I create is built from that place.
In my professional world I develop cultural strategy for global brands, especially inside the music space. I help them figure out who they are inside culture and what their role should be. I specialize in the parts of culture that are often overlooked. Subcultures, underground communities, emerging scenes and the emotional logic that shapes how people move through them. My job is to make brands culturally fit. Not trendy, not loud. Fit. I also write essays, poetry and long form cultural criticism.
What sets me apart is that my work comes from lived experience. I am not guessing about subcultures. I grew up in them. I build them. I understand the emotional temperature of a room. I understand the difference between a brand participating in culture and a brand being accepted by it.
I am most proud of the fact that my life and my work mirror each other. I do board sports to keep me in risk. I write to make sense of the world. I create art to make room for the things that cannot be explained, only felt. None of it is separate. It is one practice with many expressions.
What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is aliveness. The real kind. I think most of us move through the world half awake. We scroll, we perform, we chase things we do not even want. I care about the moments that cut through that fog.
That’s why I spend so much time building culture. Not the surface level version. The underground, the overlooked, the strange corners where people create their own language and rituals. That is where you see who we really are. That is where new worlds begin. It matters because culture is how we understand ourselves. If we lose that, we lose direction.
Festivals, parties, nightlife: this is where this comes out the most clear and this is why I like doing what I do. These are spaces where there is no storyline to maintain and no version of yourself to protect. Loud music turns everyone honest. You see the way people move when they are guided by instinct instead of expectation. You’re with the friends you love enough to lose track of time with. No one is pretending. You dance because you feel like it. You talk openly. You see people as they really are. For a few hours the world makes sense because everyone is stripped down to instinct and expression.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://strangetorpedo.substack.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliavanderput/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliavanderput/
