The Wind Collective
Clé Hunnigan is the founder of Wind Collective, a creative travel community that films stunning footage and hosts culture-focused group trips to destinations around the world.
Join us as we take you behind the scenes of Wind Collective’s latest production for Artlist. They traveled to the salt flats in Bolivia to capture incredible footage for the catalog.
Clé loves to travel and has already visited 70 countries and counting, documenting his experiences along the way by capturing jaw-dropping visuals. Born in the US, he grew up with a passion for exploring. He soon began incorporating content creation into his travels and met tons of like-minded creatives along the way, all of them telling stories in their own unique style. That’s when he had the idea to build a global network of creatives who elevate travel experiences. “We just thought – what if we were to bring more and more people into this, whether it’s stylists, writers, directors or producers?” Clé says. “What if we take that, plus our love for traveling, and take the leap and do it full time?”
That’s exactly what he did. Today, Wind Collective has grown into a network of 65 creatives, from filmmakers to photographers, art directors to designers. They travel the world, immersing themselves in local cultures and exploring jaw-dropping nature, then sharing it on their Artlist catalog for the community to use in their own projects. Partnering with Artlist has given them the creative freedom and financial backing to be able to capture and share authentic footage.
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Wind Collective is rooted in shared values of inclusivity and diversity, while always remaining open-minded. “The diversity of creators within the collective means that there’s a plethora of stories always needing to be told,” Clé says. He sees the collective’s key strength as its wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities, and skills, which allows it to create content from a place of uniqueness and authenticity.
Clé has always paved his own way, making history as the first Black content creator to visit Mada’in Salah in Saudi Arabia in 2019. “It was absolutely surreal,” Clé told Travel Noire magazine after the visit. “We were in this desert amongst structures that were built more than 2,000 years ago. It’s so crazy to think this 2,000-year-old structure exists right out in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia, and so many people don’t know.” So he made it his mission to make sure people do know.
Collaborating with Artlist
Many of the creatives in Wind Collective have followed Artlist since its inception. “When Artlist became known to us as a collective, I remember at the time, as creatives, we were wowed,” says Clé. “Everyone had this encounter with Artlist online. So I took it a step further and reached out to Artlist and asked, ‘How can we be of value to you?’ And so we started to weave Artlist into our workflow.”
Wind Collective and Artlist became close collaborators, with footage from their travels proving highly popular amongst the Artlist community. Take one look at the footage, and you’ll see why – it includes adventure diving in Yucatán, a sunset safari in Kenya, an excursion to the Jordanian desert, street dancers in Ghana, and more.
All the footage is shot with creativity, care, and clarity, with the collective flying to places with the most powerful stories. “Like Guatamala,” Clé says. “Meeting with the local shaman, seeing their rituals, and being invited to document that… not to mention water conservationists in Mexico and people groups in Ethiopia.”
The diverse skills and backgrounds of the creatives mean they have endless stories to tell. “And what we find is that Artlist’s catalog allows us to express our creativity in all of those ways,” Clé says. “To be able to collaborate on these productions together is really inspiring for us, and at the same time, we get to add to one of the most diverse catalogs that exists on the internet.”
Their most recent Artlist project was filming the world’s largest salt flat in Bolivia, a country that Clé has had a soft spot for ever since his first visit. “Bolivia is truly a land of marvels and is undoubtedly one of the most amazing places on earth,” Clé shared in a 2023 interview with Ebony Magazine. “From the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, which offer a mesmerizing landscape of endless white or watery reflections, to the breathtaking Valle de Animas, with its towering rock formations and deep canyons, Bolivia’s natural beauty is unmatched.”
Once Clé pitched the idea of shooting the salt flat to Artlist, it wasn’t long before a team was on their way to Uyuni, a city in the southwest of Bolivia. “We worked together with Artlist to create a production that really incorporated these ideas of surrealism and dance and fashion,” he says.
Wind Collective prides itself on its DIY abilities. For this shoot, it produced everything itself. It built custom lights, hired local artists, and consulted with local communities on every element, from make-up to clothes to traditions, to ensure its footage was authentic and connected. They hired a local dancer and stylist who incorporated tribal make-up, indigenous to Bolivia. Then, they headed out to the salt flat to film mesmerizing footage that combines avant-garde dance with stunning landscapes. “That’s the power of collaboration – coming in as an international team and meeting locals and being able to tell that story together,” Clé says.
Wind Collective believes that they can achieve much more together than alone. “We really stand for collaboration in our style of storytelling,” Clé says. “When you’re by yourself, you’re in your own box,” says Josiah William Gordon, a member of the collective. “But it’s when you’re with other creators that the box really expands, and there’s just so much more opportunity and so many different things you can do. It really opens doors that you wouldn’t have been able to access if you were just by yourself.”
The community feels that their collaboration with Artlist has expanded their creative horizons beyond their wildest imaginations. “With Artlist, the freedom to create has really empowered us to tell the stories that we might want to tell, but we don’t necessarily have the time to do,” says Clé. “Like, hey – let’s go to San Jose in Mexico and shoot amazing light rays and someone exploring and cave diving. These really fun projects energize us as creatives and contribute all-important income, too.”
Wrapping up
It’s a beautiful life – and the good news is that creatives can join them on their travels either in person or through the screen. “A big part of the mission of the collective is to tell these stories to make the world, this great big world, feel smaller,” says Clé. Get inspired by the Wind Collective and use their stunning and diverse footage in your videos to bring your ideas to life.
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