Meet: Marta and Adrian

As part of an ongoing series on inspirational creatives, we spoke with Marta and Adrian. From Spain and Germany respectively they're a pair who - fulled by their reckless abandon and confidence to follow their hearts - uprooted their lives overseas to make it in Japan, launch a business two web magazines and take stunning photos in the meantime.

If you like what you read, be sure to visit their sites gatamagazine.com and sabukaru.online.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves, where you're from and what you do?

B: My name is Adrian Bianco; everyone calls me Bianco. I'm a creative director and editor-in-chief from Germany. Together with Marta, I started a production and media company here in Tokyo. I have an online magazine with a global network of writers called sabukaru.online. We write about subcultures, clothing, and everything Japan. It’s a young magazine, but we are on the run. Read it!

 

M: My name is Marta Espinosa, originally from Spain and living in Tokyo for two and a half years. I work as head of production in the creative agency I started with Bianco. I also have an online magazine www.gatamagazine.com where I share all my love for art, movies, and others, and aside I love doing collage artworks and taking film photos of Tokyo at night.

How did you find yourselves in Japan?

B: I always wanted to live here. A mix of otaku interests, appreciation of the culture, and a hard-to-describe-love and warm feeling inside me when I am here. If I love something, I always try to make it work and turn it into work. After my first holiday in Japan five years ago, the next 15 visits all were jobs for various clients, and two years ago, I then started my own company here, and the rest is history and the future.

M: I was living in Germany for six years. Tired of the greyness of the country and bored with my job back then, I decided to try something adventurous and moved to Japan after getting the working holiday visa for a year. I can't really say why I chose Japan, but there was something about the culture and neon lights that always attracted me, and after I arrived, I loved it so much.

How did you meet?

M: As we both lived in Germany and had some friends in common, we always followed each other on Instagram. I contacted him to get some advice from Tokyo, as he worked in the country many times and started talking more often. He came back for work, and we finally met in person and got to know each other.

B: That's how we met.

Why did you make Japan your home?

B: I love it. M: I got my first creative and production job in Tokyo, so it was an excellent chance for me to grow in this field, so I decided to stay. Japan, and especially Tokyo, is full of creative opportunities, and it's a lovely country. I love every corner of this country and of course its food.

How does Japan fuel your creativity?

B: Everything around here inspires me. From the city, the asphalt, and just what I see by riding my bicycle every day to work and to everybody I meet, everything I eat and feel here. The city is very fast, and I feel like things I do here in a week I would have done in 3-4 weeks somewhere else. I got a million ideas and new ones coming in every day.

M: The fact of Japan being an island isolated from the rest of the world, makes everything a little more exclusive. There are a lot of creative people from all over the world ready to connect and make things together, so it makes it easier for everyone to experiment and try new things.

What do you do to stay inspired?

B: Simply keep on being here, spend a lot of time on my bicycle just watching the world around me.

M: I try to watch a lot of independent movies, be active and interested in new artists, do a collage a week, and walk around Tokyo at night taking film photographs.

What do you do to relax/ unwind?

B: Eating and riding the bicycle.

M: I love sleeping without a schedule, meditating, and meeting my friends for drinks.

How do you take care of your mental health?

B: I need to do sports and be productive and busy to keep myself from falling into a hole.

M: Trying to be optimistic, seeing my achievements instead of my failures, meditation, and riding a bicycle.

Do you have a regular morning/ evening routine or habit? What is it?

B: Stupidly looking at my phone screen, and that's ok.

M: Not really, all my days are different depending on my duties that day, and I love that, but my constant routines are bicycling and fruit juice in the morning.

Instagram
Marta / tokioredrose
Adrian / adrian__bianco

Note: All images taken from Marta and Adrian's Instagram.


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