archaeography

Córcores (Galicia, Spain). July 2004.

Thousands of villages in the Galician interior are deserted or semideserted. Galicia is one of Spain’s poorest regions. Almost three million Galicians emigrated during the 20th century to America and Europe. Many of them remained abroad, others eventually returned, but, ashamed of their humble origins, abandoned or destroyed their native homes.

Modernity has won in Galicia. Traditional houses and villages have been replaced by towns and houses of steel and concrete. This is a traditional house in an abandoned village. The floor of a bedroom is scattered with documents, newspaper cuttings, notes, family photographs. Most documents are from the early 1960s. There are two photos of a man and one of a woman with three children. The woman is alone with her children. The man probably emigrated and had to leave them behind. Did they ever meet again? Why are the documents thrown on the floor?

The dream of Reason produces monsters.

I am interested in how modernity fails or goes wrong, how it produces ruins and rubbish. I study the confrontation between modernity and traditional cultures in Spain and Ethiopia. Sometimes modernity wins (Spain), sometimes loses (Ethiopia). In both cases, the fight creates archaeological landscapes – abandoned villages, houses, artefacts.

see also >> San Jose - the fourth room