![]() ![]() The resulting book is thus part documentary and part performance, with Beltrán toeing the line between mentor and collaborator, photographer and choreographer. Another shows two of the men carrying a third on their shoulders to recreate the moment he fainted during a day-long walk to Seville from a small town to its south. In one, a subject lies motionless on blue gym mats, just as he had upon landing on Spain’s coast. As Beltrán looked for different ways to engage with his subjects, he asked them to re-enact moments from their respective migration journeys. Many of the images were, however, staged. Felipe Romero Beltrán/Courtesy Loose Joints As well as candid portraits, the pictures focus on conditions at the facility, from peeling walls to basic food supplies.īeltrán often turned his lens on conditions inside the facility in which the nine migrants lived. Overcoming an initial language barrier, the photographer began working with the group to produce images and videos. While living at the government-run facility, the men took Spanish lessons and joined workshops to help them adapt to life in Spain - some of which were run by Beltrán. Undocumented and without the right to work during this time, they were dependent on the state for food and housing. “The boy started the machine between trembling and crying and we headed north.”Īccording to Beltrán, his nine subjects were required to stay in Spain for three continuous years before applying for residency. “He did not want to drive, the fear was paralyzing him, they took out a knife and put it on his neck, threatening him to start the engines,” Elhafidi wrote. Recounting his journey with an essay in “Dialect,” one of Beltrán’s subjects, Youssef Elhafidi, recalls another terrified teen migrant being forced by smugglers to pilot their boat. The nine men, who didn’t previously know one another, were among those to arrive by boat during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in search of a better life. Of these, most arrived in the Canary Islands or Andalucía, a region separated from Morocco by the Strait of Gibraltar, a stretch of water just 13 kilometers (eight miles) at its narrowest. Last year, nearly 30,000 migrants arrived in Spain by sea, down from a record of over 58,000 in 2018, according to UNHCR data. ![]()
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