Xavier Ribas

Ceuta Border Fence . 2009

photos: © Xavier Ribas

The aim of these two photographic journeys through the landscapes defined by the border fences of Ceuta and Melilla is to bear witness to these places, to give them more visibility, and to contextualize them historically and politically. The photographs were taken along the whole length of the border fences, from sea to sea, on the Spanish side looking south towards Morocco, within the limits of authorized photography. I believed that these border landscapes had to be photographed from public access points, without mediation or intimacy with the institutions that regulate them. In this respect, the photographs don't offer unusual vantage points or hidden inside views, but the quotidian presence that both sides are used to living with.
Xavier Ribas (2011)