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There’s one thing we have repeated a thousand times: we come from the suburbs.
But not in the way that suburbs are understood today. Nothing to do with “perreo” or “nanos” from Valencia. We come from the suburbs as they were during the late 70s and early 80s. We grew up playing on empty spaces, those deserted yards where people threw their washing machines when damaged. Industrial areas where you could find containers, decals, figures, remainings of the emerging consumer society that Agnes Varda would have delighted.
To spend our days at wastelands has always been an obsession. When we started working in the fashion editorials we visited the wastelands of Bellvitge, those social buildings in the suburbs of Barcelona (we always remember when during a photo session for the band “Niza”, Roberto and we ended up throwing stones at the rats to come out of the image).
We have always looked for those places. But not only in a literal way. Today this landscapes are seen as a standard for a photo, but in the early 90’s that was not as usual. We worked for many newspapers and magazines that were published in our country. And our peripheral vision was eventually accepted, used and dried up quickly. It was time to find a new “Terrain Vague”, a place where we could explore and seek new challenges.
And the result was to be more faithful to ourselves. We started taking photos basically for us. If people liked or not, we couldn’t do much. That`s how projects like “Kink”, “Preludio o “Memento Mori” were born, as well as our growing obsession with Polaroids.
We continue digging into deserted yards where finding new things, often waste things that we try to give a new life.
“Terrain Vague” is where we have always been, and where we will always be.