Galerna

I was born in the Basque Country (Spain) in 1978.

In 2006 I decided to embark on a photography project called Galerna, in an attempt to unravel my homeland’s political intricacy from an anthropological perspective.

Harking back to the Late Stone Age, I focused my inquiry on the symbolic and ritualistic world of cave paintings located on my homeland, reinterpreting the traces left behind by the human beings who inhabited my environment.

Galerna thus challenges the notion of the identity and reveals a territory loaded with history and magic. Delving into the Earth’s deepest recesses, I try to connect the viewer with a universe that appeals to humankind’s ancestral spirit and to our balance with nature, a belief system that still guides us to this day.

We are born of the land and though the land may not care for us, if you rip us from the land then you rip our historical hearts out.

 

About the photographer

Jon Cazenave (San Sebastian 1978) received his B.A. in Economic Sciences from the University of Deusto in 2001 and, after working for 5 years in the finance world, he decided to move to Barcelona to study photography (2006).

He began deepening in documentary photography as a mean to capture and register the contemporary world and decided to complete his studies with Pep Bonet, Christopher Anderson and Paolo Pellegrin, after having been selected to participate in the first Magnum Workshop taking place in Oslo.

Since then, he has been developing a long-term research project called GALERNA. This work phocuses on the idiosyncrasy and aesthetics of the Basque Country with an anthropological perspective, using the cultural sign and symbol in close relation to the contemporary creation.

Website: www.joncazenave.com