Welcoming a New Year full of authenticity, inspiration and love on the island.

As we herald the arrival of the New Year, we do so with one eye on the future and one firmly on the past, in celebration of the freewheeling, counterculture history that has made this the most revolutionary of islands. The spirit of Ibiza in the 1960s and '70s is indelibly printed on the island today, both as a reflection of a bygone era and as a blueprint of days to come. If there is one name synonymous with Ibiza in those halcyon days, it is that of Catalan photographer <a href="http://www.toniriera.com/">Toni Riera</a>. Born in Barcelona in 1950, Riera worked in fashion, advertising and global reportage before arriving in Ibiza in 1973 to attend the opening night of the island&rsquo;s newly minted Pacha. It could be said that he never left: Riera clicked instantly with owners Ricardo and Piti Urgell and would go on to collaborate with the nightclub for a further five decades.

Hotel Montesol 1976 by Toni Riera

Riera's first poster for the club, the now-iconic Hotel Montesol image, has been recreated several times over the decades, each evolution featuring the most in-demand faces of the era. In 1972, his photograph of a long-haired hippy father walking with his daughter became an icon of Pacha&rsquo;s visual history: it was later immortalised in a bronze sculpture created by Ci&oacute; Abell&iacute; and commissioned by Pacha founder Ricardo Urgell. The sculpture was dedicated to the town of Eivissa, where it is displayed on the waterfront.&nbsp;

Alongside his work with Pacha, Riera was one of the foremost documentarians of Ibiza&rsquo;s incipient hippy movement, capturing the island&rsquo;s freewheeling flower children in a fluid, fleeting style that distils the ephemeral essence of 1970s Ibiza. Riera lives in Barcelona, where he is currently working on a 2023 book celebrating 50 years of Pacha. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tonirierafotografo/?hl=en">His images</a> from the hippy era continue to form one of the island's most important visual archives.

2023: Let’s Celebrate the Spirit of Ibiza!

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