I’m Tas Careaga Irazabal. I was born in Caracas in 1984 and grew up in Bilbao, Spain.
My life took an unusual path early on. My mother passed away when I was still a baby, and when I was sixteen my father died as well, leaving my two brothers and me to find our own way forward. Those years shaped the way I look at the world: learning early that if you want something to exist, sometimes you simply have to create it yourself. That idea has shaped everything I’ve done since.
At seventeen I started working in a small design studio, largely self-taught in multimedia design. Around that time skateboarding also became an important part of my life, shaping my visual culture and the way I moved through and observed the city. A few years later I founded Taslab, a studio through which I have been developing design, advertising and audiovisual projects since 2004.
Photography has always been a quiet companion in my life. Whenever I travel there is usually a camera with me — most often an old Hasselblad from the late 1950s. Over the years this habit slowly evolved into Kontinentoj, an ongoing photographic project documenting everyday moments across all the continents, shot on medium-format black-and-white film.
My curiosity eventually expanded beyond images into spaces. In 2016 I began restoring an abandoned church in the Basque countryside. What started as a personal renovation became the beginning of a new passion: transforming forgotten buildings into small universes where architecture, art and life meet.
One of those places is Villa Tola, which is also my home today. Named in honor of my dogs, it hosts an artist residency program where creators are invited to live and work for a period of time. My dog Tola, who accompanied me on countless travels and everyday adventures, has been a constant presence throughout many of these journeys.
Most of my time is spent imagining new projects, building things and traveling the world with a camera close at hand. For me there is no clear boundary between work and life — both are simply ways of exploring the world through curiosity and creativity.