Momentos que marcaron el mundo I-II-III [Moments that Shaped the World] (2011-20) is a series of videos that confront two collective situations taking place at the same time in the globalised world. In each of them, Adrian Melis juxtaposes the image of an everyday scene recorded somewhere on the planet with the sound of a prominent moment in recent world history. Created by the artist from material he has obtained online, the result is a visual diary inspired by his first-hand experiences in various socio-political contexts. The contrast between different ways of life and the power structures that determine them offers a significant view of the state of the world.

The MACBA Collection has three videos from the series. Momentos que marcaron el mundo I. Havana-Berlin [Moments that Shaped the World I. Havana-Berlin] (2012) shows a street in Havana against the sound of the live broadcast on the American network CNN of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the autumn of 1989. While somewhere on the planet an ideological system is crumbling, elsewhere the same system continues to determine the lives of its inhabitants.

Momentos que marcaron el mundo II. Primavera Sound [Moments that Shaped the World II. Primavera Sound] (2012) reproduces images of one of the most prominent musical events in Barcelona, the Primavera Sound festival, set against the sound of the mass protest demonstrations that took place in the same city during the spring of 2011, in what became known as the 15-M Movement. Images of the hedonism and celebration experienced by the audience at the festival are viewed in parallel with the shouts of the demonstrators protesting against the high unemployment figures in the country and the sirens of the police vehicles.

The third video in the series is Momentos que marcaron el mundo III. The East is Red [Moments that Shaped the World III. The East is Red] (2013). Filmed at night, we see the neon lights and the Western aesthetics of urban streets somewhere in contemporary China, while hearing an excerpt from The East is Red, the anthem of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, sung by Raúl Castro, such that the current state of capitalism is contrasted with the ideals of the past built on the foundations of communist ideology.