Overview

Our gaze scans a photograph taken in 1937 in Zapal, Barbate (Cádiz), featuring six women, four boys and three girls. One of the women, María 'La Rata', describes life in the slum settlement of a seafaring town that was a destination for migrants during the Spanish Civil War, a time of repression and of prosperity for the local oligarchy as a result of the growth in tuna purse-seining and long-lining. Zapal invites us to reflect on the underworlds on the outskirts of cities and on forced displacements caused by poverty and war.