Malparaíso

The photographs in this book, in a course without precise coordinates, without compasses and crossing invisible borders, stretch out in all directions, calling out to one another and connecting to form a spider's web of landscapes, human beings and curiosities. Malparaíso is an imaginary place, an Eden already lost which, as an artifice, must consolidate a "place" that forms part of the creative experience. The world, inscribed in the relativity of time, is seen only in fragments, but these fragments, as if they were the bifurcations of an infinite road, sow alarm signals until the book is tinged with a vague melancholy, a tableau vivant of our delirious idleness, a subtle allegory of our lethargy.

Exploring the classic motif of paradise, years ago I embarked on a journey that is as broad as it is personal, where racism, identity, migration, nature under siege, violence and precariousness always appear as the firm guiding threads of my photographs. My images suggest rage and pain, but also express the beauty, hope and humanity that are part of a complex reality. -JM Ramirez-Suassi