Subterráneos- Enrique Escandell

Description

In each capital of Europe there is a small group of individuals who dedicate their free time to a very specific, playful and ritual goal: to paint their name on the metro cars. What was initially born as a way for graffiti to circulate through all the neighborhoods of New York City has lost its original meaning since it was imported to Europe. Currently the metros do not circulate painted in almost any city in the world. The terrorist threat and the image of insecurity that is projected every time the subways are painted has contributed to the security measures in hangars and garages being much more sophisticated than in the 80s. So why do they do it? Why risk life and liberty to do something that no one can see? This project explores and documents the phenomenon by which graffiti writers spend sleepless nights studying how to sneak into garages, get around cameras, sensors, fences, guards, police and get to the cars turning their lives into a kind of video game. As a game, Subterráneos has two players, two points of view, facing each other as adversaries. On the one hand, the action of infiltrating the subway to paint, which Enrique Escandell witnesses with his camera, and on the other, the photographs taken by the police that belong to various trials and investigations against graffiti writers. Two forms of representation that complement each other to give a complete vision of the phenomenon. Choose your player.