Using a distinctly documentary aesthetics, Ahlam Shibli reflects on the loss of home and the fight against that loss, as well as the restrictions and limitations that the idea of home imposes on individuals and communities marked by repressive identity politics, such as the inhabitants of Palestine and the occupied territories, birthplace of the artist. In 2007, as part of the exhibition Universal Archive: The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia, MACBA asked Shibli to produce, together with other photographers, a piece on the new work-and-life relationships in contemporary Barcelona. for a project called Metropolitan Images of the New Barcelona. Shibli focused on the work of Latin American migrants who had arrived in the city to work as carers for the elderly and children. These new bonds and the daily task of caring for someone do not cancel out the nostalgia for their place of origin, where they have often left their family and children. Shibli documents scenes such as Víctor, from Ecuador, holding Francisco’s walking stick in the street, so he can write a note on the corner of c/ Casanova and Còrsega on 15 November 2007. Manin, from the Philippines, covering the furniture with sheets in Carmen and José Manuel’s living room in Passeig de Sant Joan, before they go on holiday. Eugenia, from Argentina, sweeping the living room of Pilar and Oleguer, on c/ Doctor Roux in Sant Gervasi. In all, 29 situations make up the Dependence series.

The artist herself explains her work in Barcelona in the following terms: ‘The phenomenon of employing workers to care for old people and children has spread from the affluent to the middle and even working classes, and previous waves of migrants from the interior of Catalonia, from Andalusia, and in the 1970s and 1980s from the Philippines, have been replaced by immigrants from Spanish-speaking South America, and recently from Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union. Due to the need for dependability some domestic workers are paid the minimum wage or even more. If, however, they are in Spain without papers, they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Whatever the terms, in most cases it is the generation of sons and daughters that pays for the care of the elderly, even though the State is starting to realise the social advantages of home care for elderly people. Domestic workers may be on their own and thus live in a private space in their employers' home, or they may have immigrated with their families and work during the day, returning home at night. Accordingly, they might attempt to establish themselves in the suburbs of Barcelona or to support their family back home, including their own children who might be living with their grandparents, and eventually buy property or set up a business in their home country.’