"There is a white feminism that feels very comfortable with capitalism."

BarcelonaOn April 4th, coinciding with the start of Comic Barcelona, The ARA will once again publish a special daily newspaper with all the news illustrated by comic book artists.The cover will be designed by Nadia Hafid (Terrassa, 1990), an essential figure in the new generation of Catalan comics. Her drawings unfold a hypnotic vectorial web of straight lines that reveal the essence of the reality she portrays. In her latest work, Bad smell, which Finestres publishes in Catalan and Apa Apa In Spanish, Hafid analyzes the labor policies of a fictional company, Angle Group, where only women work. A sterile, uniform, supposedly egalitarian environment, in which a strange odor reveals all the racism and hypocrisy of the corporate culture and, by extension, the rest of society.

"I've been wanting to talk about racism without filters for a long time, especially given the rise of the far right and reactionary discourse," explains Hafid, who had already touched on the subject indirectly in his first two long comics, The good father (Sapristi, 2020) and Jackals (Sapristi, 2022). However, Hafid never addresses the issues in a didactic or explicit manner, and instead seeks other narrative strategies. "I like to play with silences, allowing the reader to extract the ideas I'm trying to explain, and in the case of Bad smell "Even a dreamlike and terrifying patina," says the illustrator. "Many people feel attacked when you say we are a racist society, but unfortunately, it's the truth. And being aware of this is the only way to avoid perpetuating stereotypes, images, and behaviors that end up triggering violence."

The idea of professionalism that the company promotes Bad smell It involves homogenizing the image of working women through traditional aesthetic canons: skirts, ballet flats, and makeup. "Will you put your hair up?" they ask the protagonist, a woman of color with curly hair. "You should look into a permanent straightening treatment," they insist. "The result is impeccable." For Hafid, aesthetic pressure is also a form of racism. "There's a rigid imagery about how to project professionalism that is still a form of violence," she points out. "I've had to hear many times that my hair would look much better if I straightened it, more feminine even."

Through this plot, Hafid also aims to question a certain idea of ​​femininity "understood as a monolithic and stagnant whole." "There is a white feminism that feels comfortable with capitalism and believes that the only barrier is gender, without taking into account those of class or race." The illustrator, therefore, advocates for an "intersectional feminism" that does not make invisible the problems of racialized people "as if the struggles of some women were more important than those of other women." The critique is not without humor: Hafid draws this universe of canonical femininities in shades of pink "with a touch of kitsch and cheesy" that helps him "highlight the whiteness" of the environment portrayed.

A liberating prize

Bad smell It is the first comic that Hafid has been able to publish in Catalan, mainly for having won the Comic Windows Award"It gave me the opportunity to work in Catalan, which is my language," explains the illustrator. "And I thought it was important to do so, especially because not enough is published in Catalan yet." The freedom that the award gave her goes beyond language: "The honorarium [25,000 euros, the highest prize for a comic book award in Catalonia] allows you to work calmly on your artistic project, which is something very rare that doesn't usually happen in this sector, where everyone makes comics in the time that other faith leaves us."

Some of these jobs are no small feat: Hafid has done illustrations for prestigious media such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post either The Economist, among others. She feels "privileged" to be able to combine comics with commissions that, "in the end, also involve drawing." "I'm very proud of these illustrations; they feel like my own," she says. "And whenever I can, I use these projects to convey my message, about not falling into gender or other stereotypes."

Hafid humorously recalls the first drawings she made when, as a child, she wanted to be an "easel painter wearing a beret," and the outings to draw the Sant Pere de Terrassa church with a group of female painters. "I was probably 4 years old," she says. However, she doesn't have fond memories of the Faculty of Fine Arts. "They beat me up a lot; comics were frowned upon there," she says. Her enthusiasm for comics rekindled thanks to coworkers like Toni Mascaró and Sílvia Aymí, while we were hosting fanzines at festivals like Gutter and Graf, and, above all, feeling part of the independent comics community. On this journey, the company of women has been a constant; for example, at the exhibition Graphic Constellation from the CCCB, where she was one of the representatives of the new wave of female comic book authors. "For me, it's been very important to meet other authors, including women, at festivals, in bookstores, and in libraries," she explains. "But if I had been born 10 or 15 years earlier, I would have found a very different panorama."

A comic for the ARA

Hafid will not only draw the cover of the ARA special comic book, but also a two-page comic that will be part of a dossier on the housing crisis. "It's an issue that concerns us all, an urgent matter that must be made visible. In fact, I've already touched on the topic in some of my short comics," explains the illustrator. The comic, which will be published in the ARA, aims to illustrate how the housing crisis affects us in many ways: in our daily lives, in the way we relate to each other, economically... "All of this generates a systemic violence that permeates our daily lives, so it's essential to reflect on it and fight for our rights," says Hafid. The demonstration for the right to housing called for April 5 by the Renters' Union.