David Goldblatt’s Barcelona “562 hectares of land devoted to farming”
As part of a photographic study on Barcelona that was carried out during 2007 and 2008, in which MACBA commissioned new work from several renowned photographers, David Goldblatt focused specifically on the area of the Llobregat river, with its many road networks, industrial estates, and the airport site. Goldblatt’s photographs show the control tower and the construction of the new terminal at the airport, the nearby Logistic Activities Zone (ZAL) or the construction work on the new high speed train (Barcelona-Madrid TGV). Goldblatt documents the industrial and communications infrastructures, but also the human habits that coexist in these contexts of urban transformation as the agricultural workers at El Prat who trade their products at Mercabarna or La Ricarda beach, among other settings. As David Goldblatt explained: “While the area has become heavily built up by industry and logistics, there are still 562 hectares of land devoted to farming.” The result is a set of photographs entitled Global Connections, which was part of the group show Metropolitan Images of the New Barcelona, presented at MACBA in 2008.
