Photos and text by Alberto Álvarez
Galicia, Scotland, Ísland was born from the conception of these photographs as the physical part (and a proof) of the memory after a long trip. To come back home and to start thinking of these images as objects that can be manipulated, as toys of the act of remembering.
Photographs are nothing but memories, reminders of the past represented objectively, faithful to parameters of light, thanks to physical-chemical processes into a piece of paper or a computer screen.
Many kilometers; several countries. All the memories piled up and the need of reviewing them and sorting them out appeared when the calm and the rutine came back. This process of remembering and assimilating a hectic part of my life started the playing with the format of presentation of the images. Superimposed, juxtaposed, conflicting and opposite memories.
To use the potential of the physical support for being manipulated (a canvas, although a digital one) to turn these objective and reliable representations into something more personal, emotional, sentimental and melancholic.
The play gave way to the need of emphasizing the space-time indiference in my memory; the inexistence of a map or a calendar the pictures were attached to. Memories began to associate not following nationalities or months but repetition and common elements among them.
Also a need of strengthening certain sensations lived in the moment of the contemplation of the photographed reality appeared. Sensations from the on-site moment, without having the look corrupt by the lens of the camera, nor the rest of the circumstances (weather, mood, etc.) annulled by the photographic act.
Ultimately, a play of remembering and assimilating. A project devised subsequently, as the result of a process of reviewing the material, as the result of the need of manipulation, the need of making all these images true, authentic and human.
Born in Vigo in 1989, Alberto Álvarez finished his degree in Audiovisual Communication in the University of Vigo and lived in Scotland for a couple of years afterwards. In Edinburgh he got in touch with analogue photography, and started to develop his projects.
In 2014 he comes back to his hometown and Galicia, Scotland, ísland takes shape. He also compiles a series of black and white photographies taken in Costa da Morte (Coast of death) in a book titled Nó-los dous e tódolos demais.
From this point more projects appear, always linked to his homeland, Galicia.
