Jordi Barreras
Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Spain, 1977
He studied in the Grisart International School of Photography in Barcelona and has a postgraduate degree in Documentary Photography from Barcelona University. He has recently finished his master’s degree in History of Art with Photography at Birbeck University, London, which researches the documentary
contributions from the ’70s. After working in different newspapers such as ‘La Vanguardia, ‘El Pais’ and ‘El Periodico’, Barreras left photojournalism and moved to London. In this city he continues to develop his career as a documentary photographer and to study more in depth the history of documentary photography through analysing the work of Martha Rosler, Jorge Ribalta, Allan Sekula and Jo Spence. Barreras sees similarities in his own approach documentary in the way that these authors argue for a more social and political form of documentary. Barreras builds on the legacy of this form of documentary from the ’70s and the questioning of conceptual photography as a form to reflect the socio-politcal concerns of the author. These documentary approaches are now materialised in his first photo-book ‘Already But Not Yet’ published by Punctum in 2020.
I’ve always been a local photographer. I take inspiration from the social life of the communities I’ve lived in, but here, in the City of London, it just felt like there wasn’t one. I decided to take a series of pictures of the empty streets, to capture the strange ghostly place that I had encountered that Sunday. However I soon discovered that I could take similar images during weekdays but with solitary lonely city workers in the cityscapes, which gave the images a whole extra dimension. Jordi Barreras
Latest Photobook Already But Not Yet, Hardcover Printed on Fedrigoni Tatami White 170 gr. 64 Pages
The series ‘Already But Not Yet‘ by Jordi Barreras, visualises the individual vulnerability and subordination to economical powers, which tend to reduce our existence to work achievements and material accumulation. With the aim of exploring the hidden ways of surveillance and labour conditions in the neoliberal society, this series challenges official and conventional representations of the metropolis, transforming it from mundane life into something uncanny.
