The Ikigai sailboat (a Japanese expression that could be translated as “the reason for living”) is not the largest in the port of El Masnou, in the Maresme, but it is certainly the one with the most stories on board. There are, for example, the three roses that are waiting in the cabin. And there is David Jarque, the skipper, who left a lucrative career in the world of insurance and business to make his boat available to vulnerable groups.
And, above all, there are Jeni, Laura, Marcela and another David, from the Nikosia or Radio Nikosia collective, as almost everyone knows it for its most successful initiative: the program that is broadcast on Wednesdays in Barcelona by Radio Contrabanda, from 16 at 6:00 p.m., on 91.4 FM. Jeni and her friends are interesting, sensitive and intelligent people, although they are almost always presented as people with. With mental disorders
Nikosia fights stigma in a thousand ways, not just with the radio show. Therefore, to teach a lesson in sanity, Jeni and the others have taken a trip on the sailboat. The professional photographer Quintina Valero, another of the navigators, teamed up with the sociocultural association Radio Nikosia to create a project that subjugated Fundació La Caixa and its Art for Change initiative, art as a motor for social transformation.
Art for Change finances creative projects that encourage the participation of vulnerable groups. The candidacy of Quintina Valero and Nikosia, which proposes a reflection on the margins of the city through analog and digital photos, was one of the winners in the last call. The idea is that the members of Nikosia, so accustomed to the margins, photograph Barcelona from other shores, other perspectives.
It was inevitable, then, that the Ikigai sailboat and its owner would become the third vertex of this triangle. In 2019, at the age of 47, David Jarque was a successful professional with an assured future, but that was not the future he wanted. He rented his apartment in Poblenou and went to live on his boat. He now makes a living with charter trips, taking groups from Barcelona to Menorca in the summer. But he has a lot of free time.
He spends part of that time collaborating with Amics de la Gent Gran. That's why she had three roses in a place of honor on his ship for this April 23rd. They will be for elderly women without company, one of them, her friend María Vicenta, 94, whom she has visited regularly since 2019. She has also made her sailboat available to entities such as Nikosia itself or the Paliaclínic Foundation, among others, without asking for anything in return.
Or in exchange for symbolic amounts, as Nikosia insists on doing thanks to the help he has received from the La Caixa Foundation. They are short voyages, about four hours, with their origin and end in the port of El Masnou, but in this way the navigator achieves gratifications that in his previous life he would not have achieved even with all the money in the world: the satisfied faces of Jeni, Laura, Marcela and her namesake David, the one from Nikosia, are the proof.
This other David embarked without much expectation. "Is this your first time on a sailboat?" "I don't know, the truth: I have taken so many drugs in my life that my memory falters," he replied. But he ended the trip ecstatic. Mònica and Fabiana, two mainstays of Nikosia's projects, have seen smiles here that they had not seen for a long time. The silence offshore, the waves and the photos teach one thing: there are no people with. Just people.
Anyone can have a health disorder (including, of course, a mental health disorder) throughout their life. That is why it is so important to destroy stereotypes. When the analogue and digital and black and white photos of the Art for Change project are exhibited in an exhibition, no one will think of labeling their authors with adjectives. Artists, no more. And some notably talented looks, like Jeni's.
While sailing with them, between El Masnou and Somorrostro beach, in Barcelona, La Vanguardia asked them to summarize Nikosia's work. Her answers were: "Sensitivity", "A refuge", "A place of rest", "A philosophical alternative to the current life system and that shows that it is possible to survive with dignity before, during or after mental suffering". There is no need to stigmatize anyone. This is the Ikigai sailboat's lesson in sanity, a reason to live.
