Exhibition Temporary
PHOTOBOOKS. El paradís com a destí. Curated by Enric Montes
Exhibition held as part of the SCAN Tarragona International Photography Festival.
Few would deny that we live in a turbulent world undergoing constant mutation. Metamorphosis appears not as an exception, but as a condition inherent to life itself. Cities change, landscapes transform, identities are redefined, and technologies alter the way we relate to reality. Moreover, today images do not merely represent the world; they also produce, shape, and transform it.
For decades, photography was understood as a mechanism for capturing the real—for proving that something happened, that someone was there, that a specific moment existed. Today, the question is no longer just what images show, but also what it means to look at an image and what images do to us. Looking has become a complex, conditioned, and deeply political act.
The publications in this exhibition address the concept of metamorphosis in a broad sense: physical, social, technological, emotional, climatic, and cultural. Bodies, territories, bonds, communication habits, and ways of looking all change. There are transformations that are almost imperceptible—layered over time—and others that are abrupt, violent, and unexpected, capable of radically altering our perception of reality. Nothing remains static. Rather than simply illustrating how things change, the works gathered here also question where we are heading, what kind of world we are building, and the role images play in this transformation.
The photobook is a particularly apt format for addressing all these issues. In the face of the ceaseless flow of digital images, it offers a different experience of time and looking. It compels us to pause and to establish connections between images, texts, and silences. It is not consumed instantly; it demands a certain slowness. In a visual ecosystem dominated by speed and fragmentation, the photobook restores the possibility of a sustained, reflective gaze.
We might fare better if we accepted the need to learn to live with uncertainty—and that paradise may not be a specific destination, but rather an idea constantly being redefined, a necessary fiction to guide us through a reality that changes at every moment.
From October 17, 2026, to January 10, 2027.