Miriam Martín

Is Penfield a place? No, no such place exists. A person then? No. There is no such person.- Is it perhaps a sensation?... Something like irritation in a member that already does not exist.

The Casa de Campo is one of the largest public parks in the world, a real forest. In the images, its 2019: the green of the earth shining anew for us or the children's unexpected use of bridges and ponds. In the sounds, its 1936, the forest torn in two, the defence of Madrid: "buzzes and explosions, clattering of machine guns, dry crackling of rifles" or the words of those who invented a revolution and a taste for good life in the midst of that turmoil.

A river: the Esla. A region: Tierra de la Reina. A dam and a wildfire, destruction from water and destruction from fire, two ways of losing paradise. A forest saved by a miracle and a valley in danger. Local people who write and a stranger who reads, listens and looks.

In the mid 1980s, a national trauma destroyed Spain—in order to ease the supposed drought in the area, Felipe González’s Socialist administration buried the flowery Leonese locality of Riaño under a swamp.

In the mid 1980s, a national trauma destroyed Spain—in order to ease the supposed drought in the area, Felipe González’s Socialist administration buried the flowery Leonese locality of Riaño under a swamp.