Without trying to analyze the consequences and complexities of Brexit, we have asked some Spanish people who run businesses related to art and design in London to tell us how Brexit is affecting them in their work.
Silo Studio is the design studio of Attua Aparicio who came to London in 2009 and created a business partnership with Oscar Wanless in 2011. Coming from backgrounds in engineering and design, the core of Silo’s work is to look at industrial processes and materials, bringing them into the studio to develop. A ‘Handmade hi-tech’, as they call it, to develop an expressive potential in industrial materials. A mix of craft and technology.
How has Brexit affected your business and projects?
It is quite difficult to quantify how Brexit is going to affect us. At the moment, the only noticeable thing is the fall of the pound, and this doesn’t affect me much because I get paid in pounds and I spend almost all of them here.
The feeling I’ve had since Brexit was announced is that it’s more difficult to settle in this country. I have been in London for over 7 years and Brexit has made me feel less at home and less connected with Britain as a nation.
¨Brexit has made me feel less at home¨ Attua Aparicio, Silo Studio.
I have grown up with freedom of movement in Europe and the idea of losing this flexibility makes me think of moving away to another country. For a long time, I thought my children would be English, in fact, my business partner is English and his life fairly settled here. If I have to move to another country and continue with the Design studio, it’s going to get complicated. I would also have to quit my job at the University, so I would practically have to start from scratch. My partner is German and our only common language is English, which
My partner is German and our only common language is English, which makes it even more complicated to find a recipient country. If we were to go to Spain it would be up to him to learn Spanish and for me to be his translator for a while, or vice versa if we went to Germany. Or imagine if we go to a different country we’ll both have to learn a new language. And another fear is that if we do leave the UK and want to return at some point in the future, it is very likely that we won’t be able to.
There are countries where the natives are first-class citizens and have more rights and better salaries than the immigrants who are second- or third-class citizens. It would be regrettable if this practice was extended to the UK and Europe.
I have taken this to a personal level, but I find it impossible separate my life, leisure, and business.
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Photo: Silo Studio © Kat Green
