CONCRETE PALMS by OLGA DE LA IGLESIA

The camera captures, preserves, freezes. It also cuts out and sets aside. Since 2013, Olga de la Iglesia’s has been at work like a pair of scissors in Dominican urban spaces, isolating buildings, constructions, details, and panoramic vistas from their surroundings. Concrete Palms assembles loose pieces, connects fragments that reciprocally shed light on each other. The sequence of photos gathered here begins and ends with the image of an automobile, a symmetry which reminds us there is no trip around this island that does not imply a motor vehicle. This parallel is also an invitation to travel in two directions, a warning against hasty conclusions. Construction-sites seem like ruins; a wooden house shrinks like an accordion; a massive, enigmatic concrete-block obstructs the road. Each of these images generates associations and questions. Comprehensive views remain equally open, and it is hard to say whether these pages are a strange chain of shapes, a visual essay on change—or whether, in some more general way, they are a mirror where the dynamics and neglects of the current socio-economic order reflect themselves.

Olga de la Iglesia (Barcelona, Spain, 1987) is a photographer and art director based in Barcelona. Since 2013 she has spent extended periods of time in the Dominican Republic where she has photographed the architecture and urban spaces of the capital Santo Domingo, small towns in the countryside and touristic coastal areas. www.olgadelaiglesia.net

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