Private Story
Eroding Franco
Summary
Synopsis:
‘Eroding Franco’ is a documentary photography project that relates the silenced scientific archives during Franco’s regime with the current desertification state of Spain. 36 years of dictatorship legitimized a culture of destruction and abandonment of the territory in favor of economic growth. Today we know that 80% of Spain will become a desert by the end of the 21st century.
‘Eroding Franco’ is a documentary photography project that relates the silenced scientific archives during Franco’s regime with the current desertification state of Spain. 36 years of dictatorship legitimized a culture of destruction and abandonment of the territory in favor of economic growth. Today we know that 80% of Spain will become a desert by the end of the 21st century.
I have also added a short sample of another project, ‘Area Albania’, further explanation can be found in the visual submission.
This project will relate visually the silenced scientific archives during Franco’s regime with the current desertification state of Spain. 36 years of dictatorship legitimized a culture of destruction and abandonment of the territory in favor of economic growth. Today we know that 80% of Spain will become a desert by the end of the 21st century. ‘Eroding Franco’ represents a real opportunity to demonstrate a silenced, its present consequences, and a future that is as discouraging as it is uncertain.
I expect that 'Eroding Franco' will be transformed into multidisciplinary outcomes which will be adapted in very different formats: academic (as is happening with my master's thesis), journalistic (adaptable to different media and on www.món.org), cultural (exhibitions and self-publications) or educational (workshops and conferences on environmental visual journalism).
The genesis of Spain's desertification dates back to our arrival in the Iberian Peninsula (46,000 years ago), however, the gears that turned Spain into a 'desertification machine' were established during Franco’s regime and ‘Transición’ (1939-1982), with special intensity in southeastern Spain, the driest region in Europe.
But how were these scientific alerts related to the current desertification state of Spain?
Francoism is usually associated with social repression but also established a state based on desertification, in which construction, agro-industry, or mass tourism were promoted as essential keys for Spain's economy. Commonly known as the 'Spanish economic miracle' (1959-1974), it turned out to be a mortgage that all Spaniards would pay throughout the 21st century.
Strabo already described parts of central Spain as ‘arid sprawling plains’, but each concession to coastal tourism, agribusiness, ‘zombie reservoirs’, over-irrigation, overgrazing, abandoned quarries, rural depopulation... was proclaiming an accentuation and expansion of aridity around the peninsula, leaving a desertified future Spain.
During Franco’s time, several scientists studied Spain’s desertification and its implications, but the absence of empirical information in the regime's media regarding matters of popular interest helped to legitimize this culture of desertification in favor of economic growth. The Spanish society was not well informed, while later generations inherited ignorance and a culture of habitat destruction.
This project needs deeper documentation work: first, the scientific evidence of yesteryear. Probably not just online, but consulting papers from physical archives like CSIC. And of course, its further correlation with the ongoing photographic documentation of these warned consequences while projecting it as a memory for our future. I will also need the support of the society involved. Current times favor me, modern Spanish society seems determined to solve Spain’s desertification.
‘Eroding Franco’ arises through my master’s thesis research, ‘Irruption of the desertification phenomenon in the Spanish press’, and its incipient correlation with some of my photographic work on Spain’s desertification.
‘Eroding Franco’ will have a greater impact thanks to MÓN, a visual journalism organization focused on environmental and human rights. The current visual documentation received the support of the National Geographic Society.
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