Word

Rampa Lab is home of electroverse, which means we focus on exploring the many interactions between word and sound, and the possible bonds between literature and music.

At Rampa Studios we provide the hardware and software to produce high-quality voice recordings, which can be used as audiobooks or audio files to incorporate in traditional books, exhibitions, audiovisual pieces, theatre, websites and sound/voice archives. We also promote Laia Malo’s own poetry collections and literary translations –two of the sources we draw inspiration from.

We see words as artistic tools or instruments to change moods, attitudes and perceptions in any context. This is why we say poetry is political and social; and this is why Laia Malo manages several projects regarding social action, countercultural approaches, education and volunteering, from Rampa Lab.

The songs resulting from carrying out the workshop Poets to the dancefloor! with the own work of young poets finalists of the Salvador Iborra Contest, performed live and published on Rampa Lab Label. Organized by: Association of Writers in the Catalan Language. Sponsored by: IBJove, Catalan Youth Agency, Gandia City Council and the Generalitat de Catalunya Hostel Network. Volumes 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.

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Working close with doctors, nurses and patients, Malo composes texts and visual poetry for hospitals. To date, she has worked with Althaia-Manresa on the oncology and the ER departments, and with HSJD (Barcelona) on children psichiatry and pediatric ER rooms. Such word interventions, together with the re-design of the interiors and the signeage contribute to improving the well-being of all the groups of people who spend half their day in healthcare centres. The project is directed by Arauna Studio and Rai Pinto Studio (Barcelona, 2018-2022).

Rampa Lab and the Modern Museum Of Art-Es Baluard in Palma (Mallorca) have been frequent collaborators in different ways for 10 years. – In 2012, Jansky played live during the celebration of the museum’s anniversary, which was broadcasted by RTVE/RNE3. In 2014, Laia Malo was asked to participate in the new catalogue of the museum with an essay on Joan Fontcuberta. In 2016, More recently, in 2020, Laia Malo was invited to be part of the exhibition Mira a ver si… Poesía experimental y mail art en Mallorcawith a variety of actions: first, she designed and recorded a guided virtual tour of the exhibition; later on, she composed and performed a poetry and sound performance under the code “Risk and Rupture”. Finally, she joined artists Horacio Sapere and Pep Canyelles for a re-creation of the street-art action “Asphalt on trees” (1974).

Retrato en blanco y negro de Laia Malo

Créditos: Michal Novak

Musician, poet and translator

Pianist, poet and translator of Catalan, Spanish, English and Russian. Download the complete CV

Laia Malo is author of six poetry collections and appears in the most important Catalan poetry selections of the last decades. She has also been widely translated and appears in poetry selections in Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, English, Italian, Greek, Croatian and Russian, among others. In 2022, she was selected to be part of the European authors’ platform Versopolis, and you can listen to her in the international audio-poetry library Lyrikline.

Laia Malo’s voice and performance style when reading her own poetry or other poets, and participating in spoken word or poetry slam recitals, have gained her a spot in many programs and festivals in Spain and around Europe. In 2017, Laia Malo created the performance “Malo’s Pedal”: a show where she uses loop and effects pedals, plus other small electronic instruments, to reinterpret her best-known poems or her unpublished work.

As a translator, Laia Malo works with Catalan, Spanish, English and Russian, translating poetry, fiction and essays on art and science.

Her collaborators include the Symphony Orchestra of the Balearic Islands and CCCB Barcelona, as well as many individual renowned artists, for which she translates catalogues, exhibition texts and other projects involving words. Laia Malo has published works by Patti Smith, Djuna Barnes and Gwendolyn Brooks; as well as Russian poets such us Marina Tsvetaeva and Max Voloshin.