The area now called Alvalade was mainly agricultural land before the 1940s. Alvalade was to be the first neighbourhood in the city that would adhere to modernist criteria of urbanisation.
Alvalade today is a rather peaceful place, although quite a few things have changed. An airport was built next to it, and planes carrying mostly tourists land and depart every 4 or 5 minutes, flying low over people’s homes. The old apartments meant for the poor have increased in value, but are still too small to be interesting for the upper class.
Federico Clavarino's interest lies in how the past and the present overlap and interfere with each other, discrediting the idea of a linear progress; in how objects, images and gestures embody ideology; in how the invisible forces of political imagination shape the visible world and yet cannot fully control the everyday reality that is made by those who in fact inhabit spaces.
Shortlisted for Best Photography Book Award PHotoESPAÑA2020
Client: XYZ Books
Lisboa, 2020
