At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century Barcelona industrialized the only area available at the time: el Arrabal. Later on, with the introduction of the steam engine, the Barrio del Raval attracted large numbers of people. Workers dwellings of dreadful quality arose everywhere and it became one of the most densely populated quarters of Europe. Its largely suburban character coupled with its proximity to the port, encouraged, practically since its foundation, a small industry centred around prostitution.. In 1925, the Raval, the Fifth District, was baptized the“Barrio Chino” (China Town) in a series of reports entitled, “ Low-life Areas of Barcelona”.
Barrio Chino… a top-notch tourist route for its famous cafés, taverns and whorehouses which proliferated throughout the quarter. A quarter where workers settled after coming to Barcelona in the hope of finding a better life. Prostitutes and pimps, transvestites, thieves, muggers, drug-dealers... Hustle and bustle in the streets during the day, folklore in the pubs and dives at night...
In 1932, the Austrian photographer, Margaret Michaelis portrayed life in the shopping streets of the district as well as the degradation of its buildings. In order to carry out this project she needed to have hr wits about her as the inhabitants of the district have never been too fond of cameras. Her aim was to denounce its terrible living conditions.
Between 1959 and 1960 the Catalan photographer Joan Colom developed a system using a hidden camera which permitted him to photograph the prostitution so characteristic of the Barrio Chino.
I ventured into the Barrio with my camera for the first time early in 1998. The first incursions ended up in threats, and at times I was obliged to hand the film over. The Barrio Chino had fallen victim to the great heroin plague, the cabarets had almost disappeared, the mythical bars had been converted into expensive pubs, a tourist circuit that excluded the local inhabitants. Vanished were the dark alleyways in a half newly-built , half-destroyed, landscape. Situated in the heart of of a rich cosmopolitan capital, now becoming recognized as the most depressed area in all Catalonia, the Barrio Chino urban rennovation was in full swing.
Now that the hustle and bustle had disappeared, it was no longer possible to participate in the inhabitants’ daily life nor photograph Barcelona’s Barrio Chino without the complicity of its populace.
I frequented the district regularly during the available free-time from my full-time job as a shop assistant in a photography shop. I chatted with inhabitants and proposed taking their portraits which, after developing in my lab, I sold to them for 100 pesetas (1$) each. This strategy proved to be extremely successful, firslty because they liked their portraits very much (seldom had any of them had the opportunity to be photographed by a professional photographer), and then because this commercial reason gave justification to my presence in the Barrio, allowing me to explain my project and its aims carefully, something that was not evident for some and for others seemed even suspicious.
My occupation as a portraitist lasted several months. I went to the Barrio Chino from Monday to Friday at luchtime, dedicating my weekends to work in the labroratory.
Finally, I won a grant from the Fundación “La Caixa” (Barcelona) which allowed me to dedicate myself entirely to the project. My objective was to get access to homes in the district for the first time in order to portray the bad living conditions, in work that would ennoble the people I photographed while at the same time leaving a testimony to this mythical district about to disappear for ever. The time spent in its streets worked in my favor and bit by bit the inhabitants of the district opened the doors of their homes to me.
I took on this project as an apprenticeship and for this reason I decided to develop all copies of the photos im my own labroratory, including the large scale ones for the exhibition “Fotopress’99” which traveled throughout Spain for 18 months.