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joanalvado.com

Joan Alvado is a Spanish photographer living in Barcelona since 2005. His work focuses on long-term projects with an anthropological emphasis on the sacredness of nature, and its relationship with man's faith through different historical periods. His work belongs to public and private collections in Germany, the United States and Spain.

In August 1917, in the midst of the First World War, the liner Llanishen was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Cadaqués, and ended up sinking in the cove of Es Caials. A family of Greek sailors, the Contos, arrived in Cadaqués to work on the shipwreck. This family eventually settled in Cadaqués, devoting the rest of their lives to traveling and exploring the depths of the sea, earning a living as divers and coral fishermen in Cap de Creus.

Using this true story as a starting point, "The Ballads of the Coral" is a photographic essay, reminiscent of an adventure novel, halfway between a documentary and an imagined territory. The work offers an insight into the people, animals and plants linked to a world as unknown as the depths of the sea, through a scenario with a telluric force as singular as Cap de Creus.