Photographer and Dazed Clubber Gracie Brackstone reports back from this year’s Primavera Sound Barcelona
Armed with a camera and a ticket to Primavera Sound Barcelona, Dazed Clubber Gracie Brackstone was on a mission to “capture how festivals are playgrounds for adults and allow us to try on different forms of self expression”. Featuring headliners SZA, FKA Twigs, Charli XCX and Mitski, amongst others, Primavera has been dubbed “Europe’s Coachella”, regularly attracting sun and fun seekers in the hundreds of thousands.
It was the first major festival globally to categorically commit to gender-equal line ups, and the only one so far to receive the Queer Destinations Committed distinction. It is no surprise, then, that it has formed somewhat of a home away from home for Brackstone and her utopian party troupe. “To be honest, I feel like half of Manchester’s queer community are at Primavera right now,” she laughs. “It’s full of the same colourful outfits, cowboy hats and ‘slut’ tops.”
Brackstone honed her practice during nights amid the unbridled self-expression of Manchester’s gay village with her community of creatives. Her recent photo book, Life’s a Parade, holds these experiences at its core. “Everything is beautiful if you cherish it”, she explains. “The book is a reminder that despite the tears and the breakdowns, my life is so wonderful and precious that it would be a shame if I didn’t shove my camera in my friends’ faces every day.”
Given that, for Brackstone, life itself is literally a parade, Primavera offers the perfect environment for her to work her magic. “Not to say that people in Manchester aren’t, but I think people abroad are free-er and don’t care as much about their appearance,” she says of her experiences at the festival so far. “In the UK we all have developed a kind of shyness or a ‘CBA’ mentality when it comes to making friends, or speaking to people when you are out. I think our inner child needs to be given the space to be silly and stupid and to meet people from different walks of life.”
“People who are expressive and funny often make me reach for my camera,” she continues. “I love people who are unapologetically themselves. I think when you are ‘into fashion’ sometimes people want to be all stiff, like a lifeless doll and they make it more about the clothes than them. I want the picture to always be about the person and a moment we have shared together.”
It is Brackstone’s relationship with best friend and muse XXS that manifests this most. “My favourite pictures I’ve taken are with XXS because we have fun together. When you know how to have fun you make everything cinematic,” she says. Her favourite time at a festival was with XXS at El Dorado. “We were laughing, crying, running around the place, scared of sleeping in a tent for the first time and dancing on pianos. There was a point on our last day where we were looking at beautiful lights reflecting in the lake and we both hugged each other.”
“It is so nice to be at Primavera with XXS because festivals seem to give you real moments of clarity and reflection,” she adds. “They allow you to understand your purpose and feel a part of something.”
Visit the gallery above for a closer at through Gracie Brackstone’s pictures from Primavera Sound Barcelona.