Solar Revelation

A Solar Revelation… (2013-2018) reflects on the need for contemplation and deep research to reveal the different layers and reading of the same landscape. Under the superficial layer of the so – called paradises there are other hidden veils that illustrate us the drastic interventions of the human being in the natural environment. 

This series is conceived as a prologue to The Book of Sand. Everything takes place at the cape of Punta Paloma, a heavenly enclave in the atlantic coast of Gibraltar’s strait (in Tarifa, Cádiz) only 14 km away from Africa. Tourists from all over the world come to enjoy the spectacular views from the top of the big moving dune in Valdevaqueros. This dune wasn’t always there. It started being created in 1939, just after the Spanish Civil War ended, by an ambitious military intervention in the zone, due to an unfounded fear of possible attacks from the French and English allies by the sea. Before this intervention, the system was an enormous dune cord which must have been stable for at least six thousand years.

In 1988, in the same coast of the Strait of Gibraltar, the drowned body of an African immigrant was found for the first time. Since then, pneumatic and wooden boats , destroyed and eroded, have been washed up by the sea and end up buried on these beaches. A dark legacy that nature seems to help us to forget.

There is a big moving sand dune that continues to grow without control. This dune has witness all these stories of deaths, migrations, wars, environmental degradation. What would be the meaning of human existence and our position in this complex structure of natural and universal balance?