About Us
Alula is the name of a double star made of an orange giant and a yellow dwarf that is part of Ursa Major in our sky. In Arabic, Alula means “the first spring”. In Latin it means “winglet”, and it designates the group of feathers that corresponds with the freely moving first digit, a bird's “thumb”, that helps birds take off and land.
Alula has inspired plane designs and is also the name of a beautiful region in the Arabian Peninsula. It is also the name of a city in the north of Somalia and the name of a cape, derived from the Somali term “lul”, which means pearl.
Alula evokes the crossing of cultures and meanings that we would like to reflect in our multidisciplinary plurilingual project. With Alula we aim to make us question ourselves about the world, how we represent it and how we represent ourselves in it, irradiating multiple possibilities, experimenting, deconstructing and building new connections through words and forms, playing, learning and sharing.
Gal.la Uriol invite you to be part of this adventure and make Alula also your home.
GAL.LA AND MARÍA
Gal.la Uriol has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. She studied two semesters in the UdK (Berlin University of the Arts) and did her dissertation in EINA (Univeritary Center of Art and Design Barcelona). Uriol is an adventurer of color, randomness and pure chance that formalizes her work in objects, paintings, film, illustrations and installations. She has shown her work in many places around the world but mostly in Barcelona, her hometown, and in Berlin, where she lives with her two kids, combining her artistic practice with classes in the University of Barcelona and other workshops.
Maria Castelló Solbes, Co-founder of Alula, has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, studying her final year in the UdK (Berlin University of the Arts). After that she also enrolled in Art History studies in the Humboldt University for six semesters. In 2007 she moved to Barcelona where she got her Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Illustration in EINA (University School of Design and Art of Barcelona). Since then, she works as illustrator, collaborating with magazines, publishing houses, advertising agencies, design studios, record labels, public institutions and cultural collectives. Back in Berlin since a few years, she combines her illustration work with teaching and collaborations with art curators, editorial investigators, artists and writers. She loves maps, diagrams and florilegia.
María currently lives in the Netherlands. She is the creator of Alula's website and logo.
María currently lives in the Netherlands. She is the creator of Alula's website and logo.
