ELLEN JAMES ; // “I do not remember”
To associate photography with memory in the midst’s of the 21st Century is like continuing to believe that peace is possible - or to put it another way, that war can be avoided – I do not remember embarks on a journey through digital memories, captured by chance though three analogical lenses. An homage to the forgotten or the seemingly unimportant, because the important thing was to look.
MARTA DELATTE, BARCELONA 1982
Qualified in journalism by the URL, Delatte completed her postgraduate studies Cultural Production and communication and is currently doing her dissertation while studying for a Masters in Music as an Interdisciplinary Art. For many years she has combined as the co-founder of cultural production company Ellen James with research into and diffusion of contemporary art.
JOSEP ALMIRALL, BARCELONA 1981
Trained at the tail end of analogue photography, Josep Almirall continued his studies in the world of graphic design and design management. Co-founder of cultural production team Ellen james, which has developed several projects over the years at international level, especially in Sarajevo and Hanoi.
LAIA ABRIL // “A Bad Day”
Jo is 21 and suffers from bulimia, a kind of eating disorder. Her obsession is not about being thin; it’s about not gaining weight, in spite of the huge amount of food that she ingests every day. Bulimia has taken all her time and money, and also her passion: dance. “If I was not bulimic I would be dancing like before – Jo says – But ballet is about elegance and perfection, and I’m a crap person in the middle of chaos”. She doesn’t look overweight and she hates her body and can’t see herself in leggings in front of a mirror anymore. She also thinks that her addiction is ‘disgusting’. That’s why she never told anyone – not even her boyfriend – about it. For some reason, she decided to open herself to me.
JOSEP ALMIRALL // “Love it or leave it”
Love it or Leave it, was born in 2008 as a personal challenge. I was finishing my studies in photography and design when it came to me that I must attempt a multidisciplinary project aimed at eliminating the distinctions between different visual disciplines. In the middle of this crisis I decided to define a working methodology that would note each stage of the investigation as it differed or conformed to my original expectations. Step by step I am learning to understand how different disciplines converge in the service of delivering a message, and during this process I discovered my own narrative voice on the margins of documentary photography and design.
LAIA BLESA // “Impossible Landscapes”
Deals with a hybrid of fragments of nature such as tree bark, rocks and water, and two-dimensional geometry. Using impossible shapes and the digital manipulation of the landscape, the work on one hand confirms the idea that all representation is a form of fiction, while on the other hand it questions the future of our relationship with nature as well as the constant transformation and shifting of boundaries of the concept of landscape in the collective imagination.
LARA VERA // “My Holiday in a Roll of Film”
A holiday is a time when we can most enjoy the simple things, like contact with nature, the sun, the sea, the wind in the trees, it is the time to forget time. It is the time to walk through the streets, to discover new landscapes, and to dream. On the other hand, this is a personal work that is both intimate and biographical.
PAULA GIMENO // “Scenes. The American film noir”
Scenes. The American film noir is a photographical project about the aesthetics of the American film noir genre. It will establish a relation between a series of 14 photographs and 14 film frames to reflect on the importance of the use of light and the creation of a particular kind of space in the foundation itself of the genre’s aesthetic identity.
The particular esthetic of the film noir is determined by the play of light and shadows and by the special creation of spaces able to define by themselves the tone of the story. In the film noir, spaces actually immobilize the characters of the movie, jail them in a tragedy that can always be foreseen and expose them to the raw and cruel insight of the spectator, who is able to take a look at the hidden lives of the underworld, the scheming of organized crime and the dark violence of the mean streets.
In Scenes. The American film noir we initiate a search for this essence of the noir space, this aesthetic nucleus of the genre from which it departs to build up stories and characters. The photographs taken reproduce noir scenery, inspired by some of the great classics of the genre, and leave the characters, the story and the contents out. By this means every photograph of the series is able to show some pure and unique noir imaginary, some sort of deep, dark and cold place that defines the film noir itself.
JONTXO ENTZIONDO // “I found myself flying”
I found myself flying is a photographic series of five pieces. The work includes two integrated techniques:
The first is based on a collage composition as the human body. Look for the disproportion of the figure and it is composed of different parts for the body representation resembles the shape of a puppet and to represent the human body as something fragile in the face of the complexity of feelings and emotions. The second, as if it were the technique of a playwright, is the creation of a character to be integrated later in history. Different background pictures make framework or narrative scenario by which the inanimate object before it becomes human. As in a dream, the character feels the silence and solitude in a room inert over time, watch the sunset, vertigo, wanders among his own thoughts, listen to the void ... Like a mythological Greek tragedy or divine being becomes human and suffers the misfortune of becoming a mortal. I use my body as an autobiography, as a means to express their own feelings, but also formulated the desire to make something global and apersonal by hiding the face in any images, so viewers can put in place of the figures and feel what they are living.
