From 2014 I have been working on a personal project which documents my own vision of the Ritual, because my interest as a photographer is about the everyday incidents that determine part of the configuration of an individual´s personality and makes him or her a social being. I see the Ritual as an element which forms a part of human existence, as an antidote against the daily routine and escape from the monotony of existence.
"What's a rite?" asked the little prince.
"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox.
"they're what make one day different from other days, one hour different from other hours.
There's a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls.
So Thursday's a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards.
But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day,
and I should never have any vacation at all."
Humans have always been regulated by rites; it can be affirmed that rituals are a constitutive element of human existence.
Thanks to rites and other social structures, human beings are able to develop frames of reference for their existence. Rites represent an effective way to take tensions out of and endure conflicts between members of the same human group.
My photographical project, The Rite, seeks the reflection of the spectator on this important element in human life and its enormous value as a way of linking in social life, in a context where the migratory flows and the economical conjunction has created a real complexity in modern societies all over the world.
The enmeshment of rites in human existence has many examples in all cultures: a birth, rite of passage, marriage or death; the new year, Groundhog Day, the arrival of springtime, the harvest, or national rites, such as the Independence Day or an anniversary to the end of hostilities.
From other points of view: a bullfight, an American football match or the April Fair in Spain with their ritual clothing. Everything around us is invigorated by its different representations.
The present edition of my project is formed by 12 images, that describe the rites from a rhythmic and chromatic perspective and not as a sequence from a formal point of view. Really they are the synthesis between my subjective and personal universe and the need to explain reality.
I have had the opportunity to observe Hindu rites from a religious point of view, the “Uttar Prades†in Varanasi (India) during the purification ceremony in the Ganges river; the Holy Week in Spain and the pilgrimage in El Rocio which takes place every year; the popular rites such as the April Fair in Seville (Spain), the Latin American carnival in Barcelona, and the Matsuri Japanese Festival, also in Barcelona (Spain). As an improvised ritual I have added some images of Paris (France) taken last 14th of November, when the public put flowers and candles at the places where the terrorist attacks happened.