Pilgrimage to Catalonia (2019)

Villanueva’s politics are the origin of his fascination with the Spanish Civil War. A proxy war—a testing ground for statecraft and new ways to kill—the fight against Francisco Franco’s coup mirrors current neo-fascist regimes and resistance.  

Villanueva found nostalgia and politics compelling enough to go see what he had only read about. Devout to the history of the medium and using a familiar tool to the photojournalist of the 20th century: a rangefinder camera with black and white film—this means of image-making finds itself appropriate and respectful.

On the journey, we find Miquel Morera who fought alongside his father in his teens, Artur Tomás Mercader who was an artillery observer for the Republican army, and Neus Català who escaped the fascists with 182 orphaned children. After surviving a concentration camp during the second world war, she continued clandestine resistance to Franco’s regime. The gravesite of war photographer Gerda Taro is a step from a monument for the same camp. 

Approaching or past their centenary, talking with each of them was like a conversation with history. Intending to make real to the viewer what the pilgrimage made real for him: the anti-fascist of the past is as real and important as the anti-fascist today—Villanueva found how the dialectic continues and we each contribute a verse.