La ciudad (The city)

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This is an in progress work on three series of photographs on the relationship between two characteristic parts of the city of Murcia (Spain) and its vicinity. The city has been surrounded by an orchard since the Middle Ages. The development of the city over the past few decades, however, resulted in a slow but steady takeover process, in which the city gained both physical and cultural territory over the orchard. The orchard is still vast and vigorous, providing for many, but the city has spread and consequently overtook some of the traditional orchard areas. The two distinct parts represent different lifestyles, cultures and visual environments. At their ever- changing borders they coexist, and the presence of the other is felt even where not seen.

 

The work has three parts:

1. La huerta (The orchard)

2. La ciudad (The city)

3. La huerta y la ciudad (The orchard and the city).

 

Here I present a series from the second part: La ciudad (The city).

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Transforming the landscape and the culture from the rural to the urban is a slow process, taking decades, maybe generations. Even where the orchard has lost its grounds and the city has been constructed in terms of its new buildings, the envisioned busy city life with its welcoming storefronts is still a future, not yet a present. The prospective stores are waiting to be opened behind their brick storefront windows.

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