After living with young shepherds in the Catalan Pyrenees, portraying Muslims in tropical Cuba, or self-isolating in unpopulated Spain, Alicante photographer Joan Alvado (Altea, 1979) He dived into Portugal’s Alto Miño for five weeks to get acquainted with the nature surrounding Galicia, its inhabitants and their beliefs. Yes shepherd’s school, Cuban Muslims Y last man on earth the result of the first three experiences, penultimate is born midnight baptismsIt will be exhibited for the first time on September 17. Encontros da Imagem, the most important contemporary photography festival in PortugalCelebrating its 32nd edition in Braga From 16 September to 30 October under the slogan common places.
Earlier at 10to carry last man on earth for Huete Photography Museum of the Antonio Pérez de Cuenca FoundationThe . . . . . It will come in the most populated areas of Spain.
“I really want to exhibit in this place because Cuenca is one of the areas I photographed while doing this work.“Without being very clear on what to do,” says Alvado, who has toured the Serranía Celtiberica for the first time and has lived in Barcelona for years. to do.” Now, 30 to 40 photos will show the almost Martian landscape.the result of a journey in which he re-imagines the region, “with photographs I started and finished”.
This project earned him an honorable mention in the POY Latam (Latin American Pictures of the Year) photography competition and was a finalist in the Galician Contemporary Photography Award and the La Gacilly Photography Festival, among others. In addition, Leica has been published in El País’ official magazine, Leica Fotografie International (LFI) and Ukraine’s Bird in Flight Magazine.
Based on this work, the Portuguese art and architecture studio FAHR 021.3 which is dedicated land art, Invited the photographer from Altea to develop an artistic residence in the north of Portugal, Alvado notes that it is a “mystical realm in its own right” where “geographical isolation shapes the beliefs of its inhabitants.” five weeks last year It is in the municipality of Arcos de Valdevez, close to the Peneda-Gerês Natural Park and close to the Galician border.
as in last man on earthhe started “Without really knowing what to do there, And in the end I saw that it was a matter of looking for what you wanted to find. through a local helper, I came into contact with a region full of symbolism and spiritual practices. Energetic people who are in contact with the afterlife, talking to their dead, performing exorcisms or cleansing to protect their homes,” explains the photographer.
This is how you were born midnight baptismsNamed after an ancient ritual to help pregnant women, Alvado’s debut at the Encontros da Imagem festival “a spiritual, symbolic and imaginary journey” “how nature and geographical isolation affect beliefs” through landscape and inhabitants, through an intangible land that he transfers to photography.
Convinced that you have to “be very careful with prejudices,” he quarantined them. “People laugh at these beliefs a lot because they are seen as something underdeveloped.but there are some things that no matter how much we want to rationalize them, there are things we cannot achieve because science is not coming. And that’s popular culture, which at least seems respectable to me,” he adds. a photographic experiment between fantasy and ethnographic work, the fruit of beliefs that many would like to classify as the folklore of the past and yet have survived from generation to generation.