It’s 11:00 a.m., and six people are seated around a large rectangular table. A chaotic jumble of clippings, photographs, cardstock, full-color magazines, scissors, and glue sticks covers the tabletop from end to end. A man gives instructions while the rest busily rummage through the mountain of paper, searching for a piece of an image that will fit into the piece they’re creating on a sheet of cardstock. We’re in an analog collage workshop. But not just any workshop. It’s a “vintage surrealist collage” centered on the figure of the philosopher Averroes to commemorate the 900th anniversary of his birth.
And how can Averroes and his philosophy be depicted in a vintage surrealist collage? Good question. The instructor’s name is Beto Val, and he has revolutionized the world of collage with his fascinating hybrid creations, which look like they’ve escaped from a Jules Verne adventure . He holds a handful of tokens he made himself and asks one of the five students in the workshop to pick one at random.
Each entry explores an idea from Averroes’s philosophical work. For example: reason and faith, one of the scientific dilemmas that shaped his intellectual journey. At the top of the worksheet, the statement reads: “Averroes defended a revolutionary idea for his time: philosophy and religion were not enemies.” Further down, against a black background, it poses a question: “What seemingly opposing forces coexist in your life?” It then offers possible avenues for reflection: “Work and creativity. Tradition and change. Emotion and logic.” And finally , it suggests some visual cues: “A heart made up of two distinct parts. A tree with roots and branches bearing different symbols.”
Following these guidelines—or similar ones—students must create a collage on white, black, or blue cardstock that expresses, through images, the philosophical ideas that shaped the work of the great philosopher from Córdoba. Each student has a pair of scissors and a tube of glue. And spread out on the table is a sea of magazines, publications, and photographs, ready to be torn apart and transformed into new printed forms. Meanwhile , Vicente Amigo’s music plays on a giant television screen.
“There are several types of collages,” explains the Ecuadorian artist based in Madrid. “This one we’re working on now about Averroes is a narrative collage. It’s about expressing a thought through abstract images that still make sense.” But there are other variations. For example, therapeutic collage. What’s important in this type of exercise isn’t the final result but the process of “releasing inner energy.” It’s a type of collage widely used by children and in school settings. Or the aesthetic collage, which seeks beauty solely through geometric shapes and color contrasts.
Beto Val had never heard of Averroes. In Ecuador, the philosopher from Córdoba is a complete unknown. The first time he heard his name was when Bárbara Ruiz Bejarano, a director at the Las Fuentes Foundation, picked up the phone and proposed organizing a collage workshop in Córdoba as part of the 900th anniversary of his birth. “That’s when I began to study the man and his ideas,” the artist admits. “And I discovered that he explored the union of two worlds: the world of science and the world of beliefs.” The challenge he faced was how to “bring the figure to life” in a collage. And how to convey on a piece of cardstock that “philosophy and religion are not enemies, but rather the search for truth through different paths.”
While Beto Val chats briefly with the reporter, the workshop students rummage through all the materials laid out on the table to begin shaping their collages. Now, Amal Mathlouthi’s ethereal voice can be heard on the large television screen. “Music is important,” she emphasizes, “because it helps us cope with silence.” From time to time, the instructor gets up and walks over to check on his students’ progress on the poster board. He carefully examines the clippings they’ve glued onto the paper and patiently listens to each artist’s explanations and the reasoning behind each composition.
The Ecuadorian artist has led five workshops in Córdoba—three at the Mateo Inurria School of Art and Design and two others at the Las Fuentes Foundation. In total, more than 40 people signed up over the course of two consecutive days.
Until the pandemic began in March 2020, Beto Val worked as a graphic designer and advertising professional. To combat the endless idle hours of lockdown, he began experimenting with old graphic materials and came across a digitized field notebook containing hundreds of freely accessible images of the animal and plant worlds. “I would combine birds with fish bodies or plants in a purely playful exercise, ” the artist explains.
He created hundreds of exotic creatures that he posted on Instagram with growing success. And in just four years, his following grew from 400 to 300,000. Today, Beto Val is recognized for having developed a highly personal and distinctive brand. “They’re creatures that look like they’re from 200 years ago— real and organic. And that’s the twist that has allowed me to stand out,” he explains in a room at the Fundación las Fuentes. He has sold thousands of prints online and has designed clothing collections, book covers, wine labels, and even a New York Times front page.
For years he has lived as a nomad, splitting his time between Italy, Spain, and Quito. “Europe inspires me, ” he says. In Ecuador, he worked primarily in children’s literature and even created a superhero who gained some popularity. And now he feels more like a “surrealist” than a “collage artist.” For Beto Val, surrealism is a form of “rebellion” and “nonconformity” against the surrounding reality. It’s a way of breaking with convention.
His workshops typically last about three hours and include a collective collage created collaboratively by all the students. As they assemble their compositions on their own pieces of cardstock, they collaborate on a communal work that evolves in the most unpredictable ways. The collective collage they are currently working on is based on a vintage image of a typewriter, which has been cut out and pasted by the instructor. Little by little, the students complete the piece by adding images until it takes shape as an unpredictable and surprising composition.
After all, the goal of the workshop is to let the imagination run wild and break through the rational limits imposed by reality. “I like playful workshops,” says Beto Val. Because here, the digital artist adds, people have come to play and build a new, different, and exciting universe.
