始めまして!
Nice to meet you!
Gucha Gucha ぐちゃぐちゃ is a creative studio and shop featuring original screen-printed art and a curated selection of goods that connect us to our cultures. It was founded in 2019 by Maksim Barkhatov (he/him) and Kasumi Chow (they/them) — a creative duo with branding, design, photography, and art direction backgrounds.
What does Gucha Gucha mean?
The studio’s name is a Japanese onomatopoeia which means messy or messed with.
As immigrants reclaiming our messy diasporas, the understanding of our own cultures enables us to create our own inclusion.
WE QUESTION IF SOMETHING SERVES THE COMMUNITY OR NOT.
It began with exposure to a zero/low waste lifestyle and community in 2017. The lifestyle that made sense to us in terms of critically thinking about what is necessary and what is wastefully unnecessary, but it was not a community that looked like us and was not open to discussion around environmental racism and intersectionality.
Having this lens of critically thinking about everything we consume, from what culture it’s originally from, where is it resourced, who owns the production, do worker conditions factor human rights, to where it ends up, we knew we wanted to use this in our process of making art going forward.
With this lens, we are proud to say we prioritize that the art we make in-house is timeless and compostable.
The fabric and threads we source for our prints, bags and totes are 100% cotton. We only use non-toxic water-based inks which are PVC and plastic free, and the process to print is free from harsh chemicals. Typically, a water-based ink print will get softer with time and slowly fade, in comparison to a plastisol which hardens and cracks within a few months of washing.
Everything is produced in small batches to avoid overstocking and we never have sales to discourage thoughtless consumerism. Our hope is that the things we make will be timeless and stay with you for as long as possible, and that they can return to the Earth whenever it’s time to move on.