Exhibitions

The Last Footprints of a “Flâneur”

Exhibition September 6-22, 2024
Customs Hall, International Station, Portbou

These photographs are part of the visual essay titled “563″, referring to the niche number where German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin (Berlin, 1892-Portbou, 1940) was buried after he chose to die in this town, pursued by the Gestapo. These images have been taken recently, and my intention is to fictionally reconstruct the gaze of the German thinker and question what thoughts might have invaded Benjamin as he observed the ruins, the abandoned houses, and the boarded-up windows and doors upon arriving in Portbou on September 25, 1940. 

Could the ruins of Portbou in 1940, bombed more than 50 times during the Spanish Civil War, have served as confirmation of the collapse of civil society? His arrival in the town, under the fear of a fugitive, and his encounter with that disaster, along with the exhaustion of crossing the Pyrenees on foot while ill, likely provoked deep melancholy in him. The desolate landscape and the visible scars of war undoubtedly evoked a sense of despair and loss.

These images invite us to reflect on the fractures and fissures of contemporary society through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s thoughts. Concepts of progress, environmental crisis, resource exploitation, market alienation, social inequality, exclusion, the war industry, ideas of an equal and humane society, and his critiques of authoritarianism are some of the topics addressed.

Text by Pilar Parcerisas, curator

Transits: The Trace of Impermanence

“Transits: The Trace of Impermanence” immerses us in two series by Chilean-Swedish photographer and writer Patricio Salinas A., whose visual work invites us to reflect on the transient and mutable nature of human existence. Through his lens, Salinas A. manages to capture the multiple layers of memory, inviting us to unravel the hidden folds of our individual and collective stories. He challenges us to discover a narrative that transcends the conventional, pushing us to explore beyond the obvious.

The prism of Salinas A.’s personal history, marked by uprooting and constant drifting, becomes the starting point. In a quest for answers about his origins, the photographer delves into the thoughts of German philosopher Walter Benjamin, who believed that the true essence of memory and history lies in what is discarded, obscured, veiled, and unspoken.

To do so, Salinas A. attempts to reconstruct Benjamin’s gaze as a flâneur, inviting us to journey through images of Portbou, the border town in the Catalan Pyrenees where the German thinker took his life in September 1940, and the ruins of Chacabuco, the prisoner camp in the Atacama Desert, Chile, where Salinas A. was detained between 1973 and 1974.

The images from the series “Walter Benjamin’s Path” portray the route the thinker followed from Banyuls-sur-mer to Portbou. These photographs reveal the rugged and winding landscapes that characterize the journey. Each image immerses us in the torturous and desperate path Benjamin took, capturing the relentless nature of the mountains and valleys, evoking his tragic fate and the uncertainty that accompanied him on his journey.

In contrast to official histories, Salinas A.’s journey following Benjamin’s footsteps is tentative, seeking to recover the remains of a fragile and elusive memory. The story captured in the images of Portbou is not fixed and distant but changing and contemporary. This series confronts the viewer directly with a sense of uprooting that Benjamin not only experienced but also diagnosed in modern society, allowing us to examine our own reality.

The images from the series “Atacama: Geometry of Captivity” plunge us into the ruins of the former prisoner camp “Chacabuco”. These photographs capture the poignant and tragic beauty of the place, while revealing the indelible traces of history, marked by violence and desolation. Each image shows how the land itself holds the memory of the events that have marked its surface.

The arid and rugged landscapes of the Atacama Desert offer a fixed point of reference in the face of the change and destruction of the prison camp, which had previously been a nitrate office. Salinas A.’s gaze recovers the remains of Chacabuco and seeks to understand them, reconstructing a past that is both biographical and historical.

Far from being understood as two isolated series, the images of Portbou and Atacama are articulated in a dialogue that connects both personal trajectories with some of the reflections that have traversed the works of Benjamin and Salinas A., challenging the contemporary viewer. Through these two paths, initially distant both historically and geographically, “Transits: Traces of Impermanence” proposes a non-linear journey through the uprooting and mutability that cross both individual and collective histories.

Text by Patricia Abarca de la Fuente y Alma Gamper Sáez

In recent years, Patricio Salinas A. has participated in exhibitions at Galería La Grey, Tarragona (solo 2017); at the Centro Cultural La Moneda, Santiago, Chile (group exhibitions in 2021 and 2023); Stockholm Fotoantikvariat (solo exhibitions in 2017 and 2022); at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (group exhibition 2022); and at the Liljevalchs Contemporary Art Center in Stockholm (group exhibition 2023). In October 2023, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee decided to provide financial support for a short film based on Patricio Salinas’ personal story in Chacabuco, Atacama.