visualresearch

Since moving to the Netherlands, I’ve developed a special appreciation for Spanish culture. It´s not that before I rejected it, I would say I took it for granted. Growing up in Zaragoza, located in the middle of Monegros desert, I often dismissed the landscape as boring and uninspiring. I never imagined that years later, I would find myself viewing them as one of the most unique and evocative landscapes I’ve ever seen. Distance has allowed me to see what was always there but I often overlooked.

Beyond the physical environment, I’ve also become deeply engaged with Spanish customs and everyday social behaviors. This interest has evolved into an ongoing street photography series, documenting unscripted moments of daily life throughout Spain. These photographs attempt to capture the rhythms, gestures, and unspoken codes that define the essence of Spanish identity. This theme has appeared consistently in my work and now forms part of the essence of my graduation project.

A central focus of my project is the rural dimension of Spanish culture often overlooked in modern narratives, yet very important to national identity. Spain has long been a deeply rural country, and many of its traditions, values, and social structures originate from small towns and villages. As historian Juan Pan-Montojo (2014) argues, rural life in Spain has played a pivotal role in shaping the collective memory and cultural fabric of the nation.

Sástago is the village where my maternal family originates. Together with my sister we are the first generation to be born in the city and not in Sástago. Till I was 6 years old I would always spend a few days in August for the yearly festivities but since my grandparents became old they couldn´t come anymore and I never came back until 2 years ago. Very randomly a very close friend of mine told me that he was hired to work at the townhall of a small village called Sástago and that he would have to spend the whole summer there. During his stay I visited him for a couple days. I was unknown to everybody until I said I was the granddaughter of “El casero” the nickname my grandfather has and then suddenly everybody explained something of how we are related or how they played when they were young with my mother or how good friends they were with my grandmother. This trip to visit my friend was not in vain, it sparked an interest in the rural life I never got to experience and made me want to explore further my roots and the origin of my family. This is were all this project started.

First images I took of Sástago:

One of my first steps in exploring the topic was to delve into my family archive. I started by going through my grandparents’ old photo albums, hoping to trace my roots in Sástago. Although the collection was small, almost every picture was taken there. Most of them showed my grandparents surrounded by friends, capturing moments of everyday life. This images aren´t only sentimental but they also show how was life is Sástago years ago. Looking through them felt like opening a window into what life was like in Sástago sixty years ago.

I kept them and brought them to the Netherlands just in case they were going to be useful in the future.

In the minor Critical Studies, we were given the task of relating the concept of time to our project. This led me to continue exploring the topic of Sástago. As I revisited the old photographs, I realized how different Sástago appeared compared to how I had experienced it during the recent visit to my friend. This contrast brought me to the well-known issue in Spain of rural depopulation. To delve deeper into this topic, I read the well-known book La España vacía: Viaje por un país que nunca fue by Sergio del Molino (2016) and I conducted a literature review involving researching articles. Here is a summary of the information I thought was more relevant to the topic of rural depopulation.

Rural exodus is a phenomenon that has shaped the demographic and cultural landscape of Spain for decades, with a significant impact on regions in the interior of the country, normally surrounded by a very arid and unique landscape which barely receives any tourism. The migration of rural populations to urban areas has left many villages facing an alarming decline in population. Sergio del Molino in his book La España vacía: Viaje por un país que nunca fue (2016) differentiates two Spains; an urban and European Spain, indistinguishable in all its features from any European urban society, and an interior and depopulated Spain, which he has called Empty Spain. In Spain 84,4% percent of the population lives in 48% of the territory. The Spanish population is very unevenly distributed, highly concentrated in a few points and almost non-existent in a large part of the country.

For a better understanding of how big the area mentioned before is, here is a map that showcases the empty Spain.

This research is grounded in three fundamental concepts that led into the final project Salt, Sun and Silver First, roots, which explain the personal background and the moments that sparked my interest in this subject and my positioning of in relation to this research. This section explores how my connection to place and family history laid the foundation for the work. Second, depopulation, which examines the current socio-cultural context, offering a perspective on how rural life is being transformed today and what that means for the future of these landscapes and communities. Lastly, nostalgia, which reflects on how others have approached similar themes.

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Aragón has an extension of 47.720 km2, 10.339 km2 more than The Netherlands but its population is of 1,341,289 million compared to the Netherlands that has 17.88 million. In Aragón 50.88% of the population lives in the capital of the region; meaning half of the population is concentrated in one single city and the rest is dispersed around an area bigger than The Netherlands.
Sástago is a small town in Aragón situated on the banks of the Ebro River. Its population has decreased by 63.58% since 1900 (Aznar, J. (n.d.). Casa Caída). Now, there are only 1,093 registered citizens when in the 50´s it reached a peak of 5,000 inhabitants, the former mayoress told me. This makes Sástago as many other villages in Aragón, part of what we call “Empty Spain”.
According to Fernando Collantes and Vicente Pinilla, between 1900 and the present, Spain has gone from being a rural country to an urbanized one, in which most of the population lives in medium-sized or large cities. The mechanization of the countryside, the lack of job opportunities, the lack of services and the disconnection with the centers of economic power have led many young people to leave their villages and never return.
This situation is compounded by the progressive aging of the population that remains in rural areas. In many municipalities, the percentage of people over 65 years of age exceeds 50%, which makes it hard to maintain basic services such as schools, doctors' offices or food stores. In addition, the scarce job opportunities mean that young people do not contemplate a return to the rural environment.

Impact on culture and traditions

Villages are not only physical spaces: they are containers of memory, identities and ways of life. Each rural community has a unique cultural repertoire: patron saint festivals, religious rites, dances, gastronomy, traditional crafts, oral legends. When the population ages or is drastically reduced, these cultural elements begin to disappear or are radically transformed.
The loss of inhabitants means that there are no longer enough people to maintain traditional celebrations. Festivals such as the Paloteo dances in Castile or the Andalusian pilgrimages lose meaning when there are neither neighbors nor children to inherit them. According to Pedraz Penalva, intangible heritage is especially vulnerable to depopulation because it depends on oral transmission and intergenerational contact (Pedraz Penalva 284).
The knowledge that older generations had of the cycles of nature, of popular wisdom, of home remedies, of the respectful relationship with the environment, is also lost. It is a wisdom that is not written, that lives in the memory of the people and that, when they disappear, dies with them.
Traditional crafts are also being lost: basketry, pottery, subsistence farming, the production of local products such as cheese, sausages or artisanal breads. Without a community to consume or value them, this knowledge vanishes. Language also suffers, many villages have been spaces for the preservation of dialects or local languages that, with emigration, fall into disuse.
The abandonment of the rural environment brings with it a disarticulation of the symbolic fabric that sustained the identity of the inhabitants. In other words, without people there is no one to tell the stories.

Social and ecological consequences

The human void in the countryside also has social and environmental consequences. From the social point of view, it generates situations of extreme loneliness, accelerated aging, deterioration of the quality of life and loss of a sense of community. The disappearance of schools, clinics, pharmacies and public transport condemns many villages to invisibility.
From an ecological perspective, depopulation alters the balance of ecosystems. Many traditional agricultural practices helped maintain biodiversity and prevent forest fires. When they are no longer used, forests become more vulnerable.
Some researchers point out that depopulation could even have positive effects, such as the renaturalization of certain areas or the reduction of human pressure on fragile environments. However, without proper management, this "return to nature" can result in abandonment, fires and loss of cultural diversity.

Strategies and proposals to reverse the process

There are inspiring experiences that show that it is possible to reverse, at least in part, depopulation and recover cultural dynamism. Some repopulation projects are succeeding in attracting new families, especially young people seeking a quieter life or greater contact with nature.
One of the most interesting initiatives has been the artistic residencies in rural areas. These proposals have allowed creators from different disciplines to settle temporarily in villages at risk of disappearing, generating links with the community and making the local cultural wealth visible.
These are some that I found as the most interesting:

"Campo Adentro / INLAND", founded by Fernando García- Dory, which articulates residencies and rural laboratories in various areas of the country, combining contemporary art, agroecology and traditional knowledge.
https://inland.org/

Another case is "La Residencia Rural de Arte y Pensamiento" in Poyales del Hoyo, coordinated by the association Campo Creativo Cero, which has brought artists to develop works in dialogue with the landscape and the memory of the place.
https://campocreativocero.wordpress.com/

The enhancement of cultural heritage can be a powerful tool. Programs such as "Villages with a future" or local initiatives to revive festivals, craft markets and traditional workshops have had good results. In addition, rural and cultural tourism is presented as a sustainable way of development, as long as it does not turn the village into a lifeless decoration.

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Upon examining the work of photographers such as Navia, Cristina García Rodero, and Cristóbal Hara, a recurring theme emerges: a deep nostalgia for the rural world and the belief that the essence of Spanish culture resides there. Cristina García Rodero herself described her project Hidden Spain as an attempt to capture “the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humour, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth,” referring to it as “the work of a kamikaze, of someone who was not sure of herself, but who wanted to enter the heart of her country”.

These photographers often portray rural life as something timeless and unique, suggesting that rural communities exist outside the flow of modern time. This perspective contributes to a romanticized and sometimes pessimistic view of the rural exodus and of rural life itself. While it is true that many villages today have smaller populations than in the past, they are far from lifeless. Rural areas are frequently interpreted through an urban-centric lens that reduces them to relics of the past or symbols of decline.

Contrary to such reductive portrayals, rural Spain is not merely a passive repository of tradition but an active cultural agent, continuously reshaping itself in response to migration, modernization, and collective memory. The discourse surrounding the “España vaciada” (emptied Spain) also reveals deeper tensions between dominant urban narratives of progress and the historical and cultural significance of rural life.

In the early stages of this project, I too fell into this narrative trap, initially focusing only on the consequences of depopulation rather than on the vitality and complexity of rural existence. Although I spent several days in Sástago, and I could experience for some time how life is there, my primary focus during the making of the project was to identify signs of depopulation and the village’s physical and social deterioration. The interviews I conducted were largely shaped by this perspective, with questions primarily centered on what activities or opportunities residents had in the past that are no longer possible today.

These initiatives show that rural areas should not be viewed solely through the lens of loss or abandonment, but also as spaces of reinvention and cultural resilience. However, this more hopeful perspective often coexists with a deeply rooted narrative found in visual representations, particularly in documentary photography. It tends to depict the rural world through a nostalgic and melancholic lens. It is precisely at the intersection of these contemporary revitalization efforts and traditional portrayals that a key tension emerges, one that this project seeks to explore.

This project included my own archival family pictures intertwined with images I took of the actual state of the village now. By mapping the two types of photography I wanted to create a contrast between a the “empty” images of the present with the joyful, full of people images of the past. I think it was a good first approach to create awareness of the situation, but based on my further research I decided I don´t want to keep this pessimistic and problematic narrative for the graduation project.
After conducting preliminary desktop research on the topic, some of the questions I began to ask myself were the following:

How can I make a project in Sástago without falling into this nostalgia narrative and not focusing on depopulation?

What approaches can I take to engage with Sástago authentically, without relying on nostalgic tropes often associated with the rural world?

How can I create a project in Sástago without reinforcing nostalgic views of the countryside?

As recommended by my tutor, the first step was to travel to Sástago and immerse myself in the project. I spent a total of three weeks there, although I had to return home periodically due to the lack of electricity in the house I was staying in, which made the experience more challenging. During the first few days, I felt completely lost, I wasn’t sure what to photograph, and I felt like a total outsider. It was as if I had stepped into a world I didn’t quite belong to. As a result, I struggled to find direction for the project. My creative process is very intuitive, and although I sensed that something meaningful was present, I couldn't yet identify what it was. I knew there was something worth in Sástago but I couldn´t find what.

Since part of my family still lives in Sástago, I decided to reconnect with them, hoping that through conversation I might uncover a different narrative, one that would allow me to move away from the usual focus on depopulation. I didn’t want to fall into the typical imagery of empty houses, broken windows, dusty objects, or isolated individuals.

My initial approach was to try capturing the village and its people from a deeply subjective perspective. But even then, something felt incomplete. Just photographing what I saw wasn’t enough, I felt there was a deeper layer I hadn’t yet reached.

Talking with the owner of the bakery, she mentioned some of the most famous spots of the village like the hermitage of Montler, or the bridge that was destructed by a bomb during the civil war as well as the Rueda Monastery. But when I visited them I didn´t think they were strong enough to include them in the project.

After this first approach I went back home to reflect on how I felt and develop the first films. Here are some of the first images I took:

After some days I decided to go back to Sástago and read the book Ecoanimal: Una estética plurisensorial, ecologista y animalista (2019) by Marta Tafalla. This book is a philosophical essay that proposes a new way of relating to nature and animals, integrating ethics, aesthetics and ecology. The author argues that the ecological crisis should not only be approached from the natural sciences, ethics or politics, but also from aesthetics, since our sensory perception and appreciation of natural beauty influence how we relate to the environment. She criticises the anthropocentric and superficial vision that reduces nature to a stage set for human activities, and advocates a multi-sensory aesthetic that values all our senses. It is an invitation to develop an aesthetic sensibility that allows us to appreciate the beauty of nature and animals, encouraging a more respectful and conscious attitude towards the environment.

After reading her book and reflecting on my initial interest in the arid landscape of the Monegros Desert, I began to explore the surroundings of Sástago. The village is situated in the heart of the Monegros and the mountains and farmlands that surround it are strikingly dry and barren. The landscape feels like it confronts you with vastness and light so sharp it almost feels like it cuts. When you first arrive, especially if you’re used to green, lush landscapes, it might seem empty or even harsh. But the longer I stayed, the more it began to speak to me.

My creative process is mostly intuitive, so one of my initial approaches to this project was to record the sounds of the environment. This decision was influenced by Marta Tafalla’s critique of how Western aesthetics, from classical art to modern museum culture, have traditionally framed nature as something to be seen, a picturesque landscape, idealized and kept at a distance. Tafalla identifies this tendency as a form of “ocularcentrism,” a sensory bias that privileges sight over other senses, thereby reducing nature to a visual object while neglecting its textures, smells, sounds, and physical presence (Tafalla 28).

One of the things that really caught my attention from the landscape was the contrast between dry and vibrant colors of the vegetation. In these images you can clearly see this contrast. The fields are dotted with intense yellows and soft greens, interrupted by cool patches of grey plants. The soil beneath them is pale and almost chalky, It kind of felt like plants can barely survive there as the soil is really dry and it doesn´t rain often.

There’s a tension between the apparent fragility of the environment and the richness it contains when you look closely. The landscape is rough, but it holds moments of softness. It's dry, but not lifeless.

I recommend watching these images while listening to the audios.

At this point, I still didn’t have a clear direction for the project. I felt stuck and uncertain about what I truly wanted to express through it. While I had consciously moved away from focusing solely on depopulation, and even though Marta Tafalla’s book had helped me connect with nature in a more profound and sensitive way, I still felt something was missing. I lacked a strong, cohesive concept, something that felt meaningful enough to carry the weight of the graduation project. I knew that limiting myself to photography wasn’t enough for what I was seeking. I wanted to interact directly with the elements of the Monegros Desert, to engage with the landscape in a more tactile and immersive way. But at that point, I still didn’t know how to approach it.

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After some days wandering through the fields while photographing the textures and colours of the landscape and visiting the country house my grandma would go to in the summers to work on her parents fields together with her brothers I reached by accident the Saladas de Sástago (Sástago Salines). It is here that everything started to come together. This place will become the central focus of the project, the point from which its meaning will unfold.

Las Saladas de Sástago are a group of shallow saline lagoons located near the village of Sástago. The boundaries of the area include 26 lagoon basins that are the best representation of the 99 depressions of this type inventoried in this environment. These salt flats are part of a unique semi-arid ecosystem, characterized by high salinity, extreme dryness, and specialized plant life that can survive in such harsh conditions. They form part of the Ramsar Wetland “Saladas de Sástago”, a site covering over 8,000 hectares. This complex of endorheic, seasonal, and saline lagoons is recognized as the largest and most significant of its kind in Europe, standing out as a unique ecosystem within the context of Western Europe.

Culturally and historically, these lands have been used for salt extraction, tying them to the rural identity of the region. Coincidentally, my second surname is Salinas, meaning Salines in English, which comes from my maternal side of the family. While researching its origins, I discovered that the surname is historically linked to ancestors who worked in salt extraction sites. This connection feels especially meaningful now, as my project unfolds in the salt flats of Sástago almost as if, through my surname, there’s a thread tying my personal history to this landscape.

How can photography move beyond documentation to become a form of embodied, ecological dialogue with the

landscape of Monegros?

The salt crusts that form in some of the lagoons when they dry out have historically been collected by locals, and their extraction has been documented since the Middle Ages. Between 1703 and 1870, the La Playa lagoon, the bigest lagoon of the whole complex, was exploited as a salt mine on behalf of the state, as part of the Estanco de la Sal system. Given its remoteness from the towns, accommodation was built for the workers, warehouses and even a chapel. The remains of the salt works and buildings now constitute an interesting cultural heritage.

Map showing the main lagoons of the Saladas de Sástago

The landscape was almost unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it before. It stretched out for kilometers in every direction, covered in dry, cracked, pale grey soil that gave a sense of emptiness and stillness. Being there felt like standing on the floor of an ocean that had dried up thousands of years ago. The flat, open space created a feeling of isolation. For me it felt like I was walking on the moon. What shocked me the most was the contrast, despite the dryness, there were bushes scattered throughout the area with intense shades of green and orange tones. In a few spots, layers of salt were visible on the surface, and white salt rocks stuck out from the soil. The scale of the place, its textures, and the strange combination of lifelessness and vitality made it feel completely magical for me. As you can see on the images on the top, there was some water remains form the old salines the people that worked there created. Surprisingly the water was very clear but had really outstanding colors created by the minerals in the soil.

Continuing my exploration of new ways to engage with nature, I decided to shift my focus from capturing the vastness of the landscape to observing its smaller elements. Instead of wide views, I began photographing the textures and colors of the Saladas. There was something incredibly unique about the way the earth formed patterns on its own, without any human intervention. These natural formations, shaped by salt, soil, and vegetation, felt almost intentional in their beauty. The details, the cracks in the ground, the contrast between dry and vibrant tones, the layered textures. I felt compelled to document them closely, as they told a quieter but equally powerful story about the land.

When I returned to my house in Sástago, I spoke with my great aunt, who is the former mayor of the village, and asked her about the Saladas. She explained that around 2011, a group of geologists visited the area because the soil in the Saladas was considered one of the closest terrestrial analogues to Martian terrain. She also recalled having to approve several photography campaigns for car and fashion brands that used the Saladas as a backdrop due to their unusual appearance. I found out even a vogue campaign was shot there as well as the famous Spanish movie "Jamón, Jamón". I was happy to find out other artists had found beauty in this landscape.

Curious about the lack of local interest in such a unique site, I asked her why people from the village didn’t seem to value the Saladas. She told me that most of the surrounding land belongs to farmers, and they see the salt flats as an obstacle to cultivating their fields. In fact, they’ve gone as far as blocking access by dumping large rocks, and there are no proper roads leading to the area. She added that during her time at the town hall, there was a proposal from the regional government to convert the Saladas into a reservoir. However, she chose not to support the plan, as it would have caused conflict with many local farmers. Wanting to learn more, she put me in contact with Sara Piazuelo Mombiela, a local researcher who had written her thesis on the Saladas. Sara explained to me how ecologically important the site is and how it is now at risk due to interest from companies wanting to install solar panels in the area. These projects could destroy the fragile soil and the natural habitat of many species that live there. Her insights gave me a deeper understanding of the urgency to preserve this unique environment and made me reflect further on the role of art and documentation in raising awareness.

As I continued researching and thinking about the Saladas de Sástago, the role of salt itself started to take on greater symbolic and historical weight. Salt is not just a mineral, it is deeply tied to human survival, culture, and memory. For thousands of years, salt has been essential for preserving food, long before refrigeration existed. Civilizations depended on it to store meat, fish, and vegetables, especially in harsh climates or during long winters. In this sense, salt is not only a preservative of food, but also a preserver of life. Its presence in the Saladas links the landscape to this ancient relationship between nature and human necessity. Beyond its practical use, salt has had immense economic and cultural value. In fact, the word “salary” comes from the Latin word salarium, which referred to the allowance Roman soldiers received to buy salt. This highlights how valuable salt was in ancient economiesso much so that it was once used as currency. Given that this unique landscape has been shaped by salt over centuries, I felt it was essential to include the mineral in my work. It wasn’t just a visual element, but a symbolic one deeply tied to the history and identity of the place.

I chose to work with both black and white film and color film to experiment with how each medium could capture texture and contrast in the landscape. Once the films were developed, I realized that the color photographs best conveyed the striking hues of the water, while the black and white images highlighted the textures and tonal contrasts of the soil and salt formations more effectively. Using both formats allowed me to emphasize different qualities of the Saladas in a more intentional way.

Maja Zimnoch in 'Stage Fright' by Javier Castan for Vogue Portugal June 2021

In what ways can I incorporate salt into my project so that it feels conceptually meaningful and organically integrated

with the photography medium?

My first step was to request permission from the Sástago town hall to collect a small amount of water and salt rocks from the Saladas. They allowed me to do so, as long as I was respectful of the environment and didn’t take excessively. Naturally, I was mindful of this and I only took a few bottles of water and several salt rocks, making sure to leave the area as undisturbed as possible. The rocks of salt were everywhere, scattered across the soil just like in the image, almost as if the land itself was sweating out the mineral.

This is the spot where I collected the water. It's an old structure originally built for salt extraction, where water still remains today. The water had vivid yellow and red hues, tinted by the different minerals present in the soil.

One of the first ideas that came to mind was to submerge photographs in the salty water I had collected and let the sun slowly evaporate it. Since I didn’t have any printed images with me in Sástago, I experimented with an old photo I found in the house, one that nobody cared about. The result was unexpected as the salt crystallized visibly on the surface, creating beautiful, organic patterns. However, over time, the salt began to flake off and detach from the image. I though maybe it was because the paper was glossy and that didn´t allow the salt penetrate in the paper.

When I returned to Zaragoza, my hometown, I tried the process again using some old photographs I had. However, the salt still wouldn’t adhere properly, and the paper began to dissolve in the water. It was a frustrating experience, so I decided to consult Sheyla López, a Zaragoza-based photographer known for experimenting with alternative photographic processes and who also works in a professional printing studio. She advised me to print on matte paper with minimal chemical treatment and no bleaching agents. I followed her recommendation and printed a series of 10x15 cm images. The results were amazing. I applied exactly 100 ml of saline water to each print and let the water evaporate with sunlight, and I was surprised by how differently the salt crystals formed on each one. I only used the color film photographs so the salt would interacted with the tones of the image and it created a seamless and organic visual blend. This time the salt wasn´t fleaking off.

Researching on other ways of including salt on my work, I found out that I could do Salted paper prints. This technique is one of the earliest photographic printing processes, developed in the 1830s by William Henry Fox Talbot. In this method, paper is coated with a solution of salt (sodium chloride) and then sensitized with silver nitrate, creating light-sensitive silver chloride on the surface. Once dried, the paper is exposed to sunlight in contact with a negative, and the image slowly appears as the silver darkens. It´s like a cyanotype but instead of an intense blue this technique produces soft, matte images with warm brownish tones and subtle textures. This way of printing laid the foundation for modern photographic printing.

What I needed is: Silver nitrate, Citric acid, Salt, Sodium thiosulfate (fixer), Destilled water and Watercolor paper.

I began by fully soaking the paper in a solution of water and salt for about five minutes, which I found to be the most effective method for even absorption. After soaking, I let the paper dry completely in the sunlight. Once dry, I applied a mixture of citric acid and silver nitrate to sensitize the surface. From that point, the paper needed to dry again, this time in total darkness to prevent any premature exposure.

For my initial tests, I used a negative I already had at home, just to check if the process was functioning correctly. To my surprise, it worked right from the start. One of the most noticeable changes was in the color. The image shifted from a reddish hue to a more brownish tone after being placed in the fixer, revealing how the chemical reaction altered the final appearance.

I already knew the process worked with regular sea salt, but I was curious to see if it would also work using salt from the Saladas. I poured the saline water into an empty tray and used an air fryer to evaporate it, eventually obtaining natural salt crystals. I then used this locally sourced salt to coat new sheets of paper and continued with the salt silver print process, integrating the landscape itself directly into the photographic material.

This project began with a desire to reconnect with my roots in Sástago, but I quickly realized the complexity of representing a place so closely tied to memory, absence, and transformation. My initial approach leaned heavily on the visual contrast between past and present, shaped by depopulation and the disappearance of traditions. However, I came to understand that simply documenting loss would risk falling into the same nostalgic and melancholic narratives I wanted to avoid.

By immersing myself in the landscape physically, emotionally, and creatively I found new ways to engage with Sástago that moved beyond nostalgia. Reading Marta Tafalla’s Ecoanimal helped me develop a multisensory approach that resisted seeing nature only as a visual spectacle. Her emphasis on embodied, ecological aesthetics encouraged me to engage with the environment through sound, texture, material, and memory. This shift was essential in allowing me to relate to the land not as something to observe, but as something to collaborate with.

The turning point in my process was the discovery of the Saladas de Sástago. These salt flats became the conceptual and material heart of the project. Working with the actual salt, sunlight, and silver photographic techniques allowed me to integrate the landscape into the medium itself. The materials were not just symbolic, they became active participants in the creation of the images. Through trial and error, I found ways to let salt crystallize onto prints, to use locally extracted salt in early photographic processes, and to allow natural forces to shape the final outcomes. This method transformed photography into a tactile, ecological dialogue with the land.

In answering the question of how to represent Sástago authentically, I discovered that the key was not to avoid nostalgia completely, but to challenge it. Letting memory coexist with presence and decay with resilience. Rather than offering a fixed narrative about rural loss, Salt, Sun and Silver became a process of listening, responding, and co- creating with the landscape.

I decided to name the project Salt, Sun, and Silver because these are the three main elements that brought the images to life. While I’m still uncertain about the final form the project will take, what I envision at this stage is a combination of the three types of images I’ve produced: the traditionally printed photographs, the ones altered by saltwater, and the salt-silver prints. I would also like to include the small salt rocks I collected from the Saladas and use all four elements, image, salt, sun, and silver to construct a mapped landscape. My idea is to present the images in different sizes, arranged across the wall in a way that mirrors the organic, scattered layout of the salt flats themselves. In the Saladas, everything was spread out randomly, almost without logic, and I want to echo that feeling in the installation to create a visual terrain that feels intuitive, raw, and reflective of the landscape that inspired it.

Salt, Sun, and Silver is a personal and ecological exploration of Sástago, the rural village where my maternal family originates. Through photography, material experimentation, and sensory engagement with the landscape, the project seeks to move beyond nostalgic narratives of rural decline. Inspired by the arid beauty of the Saladas de Sástago and guided by the writings of Marta Tafalla, I worked with elements drawn directly from the environment to create images that reflect both the fragility and resilience of this unique place. At its core, the project is a dialogue between memory, matter, and nature.