International Projects

Barcelona City Panoramas

Thanks to an invitation by photographer Ricard Martinez and support from the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, the Arqueología del Punt de Vista, and the Institute de Cultura, I was able to visit Barcelona in November 2010 and make new photographs that would contribute to two contrasting panoramas of the city made from a location called Miramar on Montjuic. Views of the city from this location span over four hundred years and were created in a variety of media.  

The first panorama was based on four beautiful, overlapping panoramic views of the city made in the late nineteenth century by photographer Jean Laurant. It was in Laurant’s photographs that I could clearly see the modern transformation of an ancient city, with its medieval walls being torn down to make way for new roads and the beginnings of a modern seaport. Comparing his photographs to the city in 2010 I could see much still remained from the nineteenth century and I was able to merge large pieces of the photographs I made with his. Combined together the nineteenth and twenty first century photographs created a visual map of the space from Miramar that would enable details of images from other times to be included as well. Altogether parts from over forty-five images were digitally combined to complete the final composite panorama. The print of this image was made large enough (three meters long) to show details that could be compared through time. 

The second version of the Barcelona panorama reversed the base view from Miramar, and the photographs I made in 2010 became the ground upon which images from other time periods were layered.  This version shows more of the city view we experience today, while pieces of the city’s historic images are connected to identifiable details of this panorama. 

The first panorama places the dynamism of the nineteenth century as the focus of its perspective, the second version places the present century as its priority view. Together the two panoramas were motivated by a desire to see the passage of time – and of one’s own point of view - in perspective. We often see ourselves at the center of time; only rarely do we experience time’s passage as from afar, as something larger from which we are only participants in a brief moment. This perspective escapes us because we cannot see beyond our view of the instant.