duelos y quebrantos

Castilla La Mancha is the central region of Spain. It is historically stagnated, eighty percent of its surface is flat, the soil is dry and most of its inhabitants are elderly people. It is an area culturally determined by the persistency of values and traditions that transcend the passage of time, that coexist within the alterations in the landscape and the artifice of ephemeral fashions. Don Quixote de La Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, takes place in this area.

Considering the complexity that prevails in human relationships, and the many factors that converge to generate a vision of the social and moral universe of this Spanish region, I seek to inquire into values and traditions that reflect the virtues and vices that are to be found in the monotonous reality of the people of this territory.

This project follows the steps of Don Quixote in Castilla La Mancha. A route of 2500km that covers the 5 provinces of the region, Albacete, Cuenca, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara and Toledo. In order to create a timeless parallelism between the society described by Cervantes in his novel and the contemporary one, I position myself as Don Quixote. The result is this brutal, but sincere, interpretation, a personal journey that delves into the lives of the inhabitants of Castilla La Mancha.