Sculptors of giants: "When you hand over the figure, it's like a child leaving."

Granollers / SolsonaThe main square is packed to the rafters. Grallas and timpani announce the start of the festivities. And the anticipation is palpable: a new giant, a dwarf, or a fire-breathing dragon will dance for the first time before the townspeople. Among the eyes watching the scene, some are especially excited. They already know which figure will appear: they know its size, its relief, its colors, and the fabric of its costume. Eyes that could belong to Ramon Aumedes, Sessa Casserras, or Pau Reig, three of the twenty or so creators of festive imagery in Catalonia. ARA has visited their workshops to discover who they are and how the creators of the more than 5,000 giants, 20,000 big-headed figures, and 10,000 bestiary figures found throughout the country work. A job that straddles the line between craft and art.

The first stop is at the Sarandaca Workshop in Granollers. We are greeted by the sculptor and painter Ramon Aumedes, covered in clay and paint. He seems eager to explain the work to which he has dedicated 41 of his 75 years. And we immediately see a good example: dozens of giant papier-mâché heads fill the walls up to the ceiling of the workshop. They are replicas of past commissions. "When there was no internet, they served as our catalog," he explains. Now everyone sees his work on social media, and that's why he is extremely strict about professional secrecy: "These giants can't be photographed; they haven't been unveiled yet." Right next to it is the bust of a giantess that will be for the town of Seva. Spatula in hand, the artist outlines the clay face while recounting the history of the workshop.

Aumedes' connection to popular culture cannot be understood without his childhood in Guissona, where his father revived traditions buried by the Civil War, nor without his childhood dream: "When I grow up, I'm going to make a giant." His creative spirit led him to study drawing and fine arts and to work for several sculptors. And in 1984, when he had almost forgotten that childhood wish, everything came together: "My family and I had moved to Canovelles and we organized the neighborhood festival. I was obsessed with doing a self-portrait and decided I would do it as a giant," he explains.

"All the giants I make are portraits of someone."

The figure created in the likeness of young Aumedes, now visible at one end of the workshop, was a success beyond the village. And three years later he received his first commission: to recreate the giants of Granollers. "From there it was word of mouth," he explains. "People came from La Garriga, from Montornès..." Now Aumedes has made some 300 giants, about eighty beasts, and More than 500 tadpoles. He has received orders from all over Catalonia, but also from Spain, the United States, Latin America, and Singapore.

For four decades, he has maintained the same technique for creating the figures. Once molded from clay, Aumedes and his son Pol—who is 45 and also works in the workshop—turn them over to make a mold, which is a negative image. They fill the mold with layers of fiberglass and polyester resin. And so on with all the parts, which are joined together until the figure is complete, which will be placed on a wooden easel. Finally, it has to be painted and, if applicable, its clothing made, which is the responsibility of Aumedes' wife, Francina Morell (73), and his daughter Mar (39), who is a designer.

The process usually takes between a month and a half and three months. And all the figures, like Aumedes' first creation, are portraits of someone. "If you don't use a model, you end up with lifeless faces," explains the artist, who finds inspiration in his surroundings: "I have nine siblings, and I've made four or five of them into giant figures. My daughter is in Sant Andreu de la Barca, Pol's wife will be in Seva… And I've made friends too," he says, laughing. "Often it's not an exact portrait, but you capture the character or the look," he clarifies. Currently, as in the Sarandaca festival, much of the festive imagery is constructed with fiberglass. But this material didn't reach the sector until the 1970s, more than five hundred years after the first reference to a giant in Catalonia (and worldwide), which dates back to 1424. Until then, explains folk culture expert Jan Grau, builders used boiled leather applied to wicker, wood, or cork. And around 1600, papier-mâché arrived, a material still used by some workshops today.

The house where the Giants of Pi were born

One of them is the Casserras workshop in Solsona, with seven decades of history and a catalog of over 300 figures. We traveled there to meet 34-year-old Sessa Casserras. He leads the workshop that his grandfather, Manel Casserras i Boix, and his father, Manel Casserras i Solé, established as a benchmark in the creation of festive imagery. Entering this space is like taking a journey back in time. Historical photographs on the walls showcase the family's most emblematic creations. They have crafted many of the figures for the Solsona Festival and Carnival, as well as the Mulassa, the Lion, and the Bull of Barcelona, and the iconic Giants of Pi.

One of the most striking images shows Casserras and Boix (the grandfather) in the midst of reconstructing Mustafà in 1960, naked and without his characteristic turban, and Elisenda, with a shaved head. Snapshots like this explain the step forward that Sessa Casserras took in 2015, when her father died: she put her career as a biotechnologist on hold, graduated in conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, and took over the workshop. "I want to preserve the work of my grandfather and my father and the oldest festive imagery in Catalonia as it deserves," she explains.

Restoring figures takes up much of her time, especially before major festivals or giant figure gatherings. "More and more are being done, and there are many falls," she explains. However, no repair has received as much media attention as last year's restoration of the Gigantes del Pi (Giants of Pi), before a gathering in Barcelona. In the workshop, transformed into a makeshift intensive care unit, live broadcasts were being made. "It seemed like there was no more news," Casserras quips. "We had a week and the giant was in very bad shape, but we did it."

Casserras works alongside his partner, Ferran Fontelles, 37. Both are dedicated to maintaining the techniques that have defined the "Casserras brand" since 1956. They demonstrate this with a half-finished giant for the town of Navàs. The clay modeling and plastering process is the same as we saw in Granollers, but the mold is filled with papier-mâché. They then coated the figure with plaster and rabbit-skin glue, and finally, they will apply the polychrome paint using oil paint and pigments.. The process, which can take up to six months, culminates with the glass eyes that are placed on all the giants. All of this is done with "materials that have been lost" and which—Casserras argues—allow for a "better recovery" of the damaged figures.

From Kings to Popular Figures

Most of their clients are folk culture groups or local councils, and every commission begins at the drawing board. Papers pile up there with sketches, costume proposals, and proportions. One of the most important steps is adapting the commissions to their surroundings: "The most urban giants can be up to four meters tall, but in a medieval village they wouldn't fit through any balcony," explains Fontelles. If the figures have historical significance, a research process is also necessary.

Casserras testifies to how the type of giants has changed over the years: from the "majestic" figures of kings and nobles to "more popular" representations, based on legends, trades, or local characters. This shift coincided with the boom in the creation of religious imagery that occurred in the 1980s, with the end of the Franco regime and the revival of street festivals and celebrations. It was also then that Casserras's father introduced the figure of the "crazy giant" to Solsona, with a caricatured and lighthearted appearance that is now replicated throughout the country.

In recent years, commissions for giant figures and children's beasts, as well as tadpoles for commemorative purposes, have also skyrocketed. Sarandaca receives many of these commissions, including from private individuals. One of the latest tadpoles Aumedes has made is of the comedian Andreu Buenafuente, who received the piece as a gift for his 60th birthday. He also made one some time ago with the face of the politician Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, which was used to liven up rallies during the tripartite coalition government. "I tell everyone: 'Be careful, this takes up a lot of space in an apartment!'" he says.

The first tadpoles, at age 3

Communication with clients is key, and this idea resonates in the third workshop we visit. Five kilometers from Casserras, on the outskirts of Solsona, there's an old farmhouse amidst fields. Pau Reig awaits us at the entrance to the building his grandfather used as a barn, where he has set up his workshop. He's 27 years old, has been working professionally in religious imagery for six years, and overflows with passion for popular culture. This is how he describes his creative process: "I love it when groups come to the workshop and we work on the project together. Sometimes the finished product isn't as important as creating it together." He has already built more than thirty pieces, mostly from the bestiary. He works with fiberglass, although he prefers papier-mâché for the giants. It's no wonder the Casserras are one of his role models: "Manel, Sessa's father, was like Leo Messi to me," he confesses. Reig was already building tadpoles at the age of three, and shortly after, he moved on to making giants. with her brother. "Grandma sewed our dresses and Grandpa made the wooden easel," she recalls. At 17, she built her first beast, Phoenix, which now presides over the entrance to the workshop.

"Practice, practice, and more practice" has allowed him to dedicate himself to what he loves. But he has also taken specific courses in sculpture—there is no formal training in Catalonia—and has studied fine arts and conservation and restoration. His final degree project was his first professional commission: the construction of the Voliak of Oliana, a fire-breathing bat over three meters tall. And one of his most recent works was the head of the bee that Manchester, the guest city at the 2025 Mercè festival, displayed in the streets of Barcelona. Watching the young sculptor apply and remove clay is mesmerizing: he takes a step back to observe the figure and then goes back to work. "I like to let myself go," he admits.

"They're like Renaissance artists"

Both he, Casserras, and Aumedes defend the artistic nature of their work and their figures as works of art. "My father liked to emphasize that we are sculptors. In the end, the piece we mold could be translated into bronze or wood," says Casserras. Expert Jan Grau observes that the art world has "disregarded" the builders of giants and points out that "they are more than sculptors." "They don't just translate what they are asked to into a sculpture, but they balance the giant, find the clothing... They are like Renaissance artists, who did everything."

There are about twenty professionals dedicated to festive imagery in Catalonia. Until recently, there was a lack of successors, but in recent years the sector has welcomed a new generation of young creators, as is the case with Reig. It's not easy to get started, but the workshops we visited have no shortage of work and can dedicate themselves exclusively to it. The price range for the figures is very wide: from €6,000 to €14,000 for the giants, from €8,000 to €15,000 for the beasts, and from €2,000 to €4,000 for the tadpoles.

Before saying goodbye, we asked them which was their favorite creation, but we didn't get a clear answer. Aumedes explained why: "When you hand over the figure, it's like a child leaving." And this brings us back to that main square packed to the rafters. "When the figures come out, they cease to be your children; they come to life and become part of the town," says Reig. And then, he adds, the person who built them becomes less important, and what matters is their connection to the people: "It's not just the sculpture; it's the music, the choreography, the streets they pass through, the smell of gunpowder," he explains. "For me, this is the essence of building giants and of popular culture."