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.
This house was probably abandoned in the 1960s. They left dishes, cupboards, beds, chests and chairs behind. What happened to their owners? Did they succeed abroad? Did they build a new, modern house elsewhere?
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
 by Alfredo Gonzalez Ruibal
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