Sara Puig
Más allá del horizonte
Más allá del horizonte
Sara Puig
La Graciosa is an island of barely 700 inhabitants. It is a territory where the struggle for subsistence has been carved into the history, memory and identity. Indeed, extreme conditions and adversity have shaped the inhabitants for generations creating a unique sense of belonging and heritage. The island, seen from outside as a paradise, locks its inhabitants into a never-ending cycle. This mixes routine and destiny until they are non-distinguishable, setting traditions in stone and making any choice that differs from it, impossible even to grasp as an option.
My project, Paradise or Prison, was born by questioning the idyllic portrait of the island done its elderly inhabitants.
By interviewing the elders of the island about their lifestyle, and how it has evolved with age, I managed to understand how deep and grounded their love for the island is. Thus, I photographed the small space they live in trying to portray as much as possible the beauty described by them. From my point of view, this showcases how this space respons to struggle. Moreover, using these pictures I analyzed how important consistency was for the inhabitants of the island, though it created a sense of monotony and repetition that felt claustrophobic to me.
In this work, I intend to question the acceptance of an imposed reality. How human beings accept whatever condition they are born in, and how it can be almost impossible to challenge when we do not have any experience outside of this environment. Finally, I argue that not questioning this reality leads to an unnatural constructed reality, that is a byproduct of trying to exist in an imposed environment.