PHotoESPAÑA is a celebration of camera work, showcasing images that are both beautiful and thought-provoking. The visual arts festival has hosted 1,800 exhibitions with 4,000 creatives since 1998, taking over Spanish cities, such as Barcelona, Santander and Zaragoza. Practitioners are using this year’s theme, The Perpetual Movement, to explore a variety of topics – from the human body to moments in history.
Carma Casulá (b. 1967) epitomises this year’s focus in The Artist’s Gaze Makes the Destination. The exhibition highlights her travels, from the lush rainforests in Costa Rica to the islands near El Salvador. In another show, lens-based artist and filmmaker Rob Woodcox (b. 1990) presents Bodies of Light, which comprises outdoor interventions in the tradition of Ana Mendieta’s earth- body works. In The Wave, acrobatic dancers leap joyously into the sky, whilst The Mountain depicts a massive human pyramid.
Photographer Cristobal Ascencio (b. 1988) approaches The Perpetual Movement from the perspective of ever-changing interpersonal bonds. Garden I (2023) is a flora-filled 3D photogram recreating the garden that Ascencio’s late father tended. The body of work came about after the lens-based practitioner learned that his dad had committed suicide, which prompted the artist to revisit his family archives. The Flowers Die Twice (2022) is a tribute to a loved-one who now lives on in memories. It is an “invitation to think about all the relationships that we once formed and that continue to develop after death.” Through work like this, PHotoESPAÑA establishes itself as an expansive festival unafraid to ask the big questions.
PHotoEspaña | Until 29 September
Words: Diana Bestwish Tetteh
Image Credits:
- Cristóbal Ascencio, Garden I, from Las Flores Mueren Dos Veces, (2023).
- The Mountain, 2019 © Rob Woodcox.
- Human Thread, 2022 © Rob Woodcox.
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