The grass grows underneath the pavement
Video: 14’ 12’’
2008
This piece puts forward a reflection on contemporary cities and their evolution, dealing with the concept of the destruction of the natural environment in the present-day metropolis. By evoking the remote past of a capital such as Madrid, the video retraces an itinerary through all the gardens, pastures and groves that occupied the centre of the city during the reign of the Habsburg Dynasty, but that no longer exist today. In the video Diana Larrea shows some drawings of the town as it was during the 16th century, with the gardens of the noble palaces, the olive orchards and the convent vegetable gardens, as well as the hospital parks, which were prevalent throughout the city. She faithfully based these on data she found by studying the first known map of Madrid, which dates from 1656 and was produced by the Portuguese cartographer Pedro Texeira.
Through these drawings, made by the artist herself, we can compare the way these locations looked in the past with current pictures of the same places recorded with the camera as they are at present.
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Video stills
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