Dare to let ideas have a home - Melissa Castan

Mel Castan is a Mexico City-born, Barcelona-based animator, illustrator, and community builder whose creative journey has taken her from advertising school to motion graphics to founding two community projects for creatives. ~

She talks with Radim about growing up in a military family with a spiritual streak, discovering illustration as a meditative practice, and building spaces where creatives can process burnout, imposter syndrome, and identity beyond the usual networking event.

Takeaways

• Mel is a Mexico City-born, Barcelona-based animator, illustrator, and producer who's spent nine years building a career across advertising, motion design, and community-building
• Growing up in a military family — her grandfather a retired army general who turned to spirituality after retiring — shaped her comfort holding contradictions together
• She describes creativity as a lifelong practice tied to her ADHD, and drawing as a meditative practice since childhood
• A mapping show by Amon Tobin reshaped her sense of what creative work could be and pulled her toward studying motion graphics in Barcelona
• She spent her first days in Barcelona intentionally getting lost in the Gothic Quarter, without a phone or map, as her way of learning the city
• She co-founded Frames by Friends, a five-year community for Barcelona's animators and motion designers that grew from an expected 20 people to 75 at its first event
• Her current project, Side Project, builds spaces — Honest Conversations and Work in Progress — for creatives to process burnout, imposter syndrome, and identity beyond networking
• She describes "vicarious learning" — the idea that sharing our struggles with others makes them feel lighter and less isolating
• Her guiding philosophy is that ideas have home, and her role is to be that home for others
• She's letting Side Project's future shape itself without attachment to a fixed outcome, trusting that showing up consistently will reveal the next step

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