I had just finished my exhibition Métamorphose in may 2006. I was tired from having shot an empty hospital that reminded me too much of my car accident, being immobile for several months and struggling for two years to walk normally again.
I was in the Aluche neighborhood of Madrid when someone brought up the story of Carabanchel Prison.
The next day, we decided to visit the exterior of this ghostly prison. A 15-minute walk from Aluche, near the new police station for immigrants, a large red-brick building appeared before my eyes, a remnant of Spanish history. Without yet knowing exactly why, I felt like I had found the logical follow-up of Métamorphose.
The excitement increased during my first guided visit in June 2006. I felt a sense of abandon surrounded by decay and graffiti. I felt the emptiness of the haunting wind. I felt confined by the repetition of bars and doors. And I felt a desire for freedom in the inscriptions penciled into the cell walls by prisoners.
While it was active, the prison walls remained neutral to the moods of its occupants, standing silent against Spanish history. But time, the years, the solitude, the abandonment of the building has provoked, on its walls, the raw image of its experience.
Jean-Yves Gargadennec, Ma part d’ombre, 2006
Read the full article on the French version of Le Journal.
Exhibition:
Jean-Yves Gargadennec: Carabanchel
In part of 10th anniversary of Images Magazine
Until Paril 7th, 2013
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
5/7 rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris
France
Book:
Jean-Yves Gargadennec: Carabanchel
Trans Photographic Press / fin 2013
120 photographs.
20×25 cm, hardcover
208 pages
French, Spanigh, English.
