Casa de Campo

Photographer Antonio Xoubanova presents Casa de Campo, a vast wooded area west of Madrid inhabited by homeless people and strange characters. As a preface to this new title from Mack Publishing, a few photos of the paths that criss-cross these woods alert us to the kind of story we are about to encounter: a very harsh reality lurks among the bushes.

The story is divided into five chapters revolving around love, death, fleeting moments, symbols and aimlessness. Xoubanova sheds some light on the freedom enjoyed by people who know much more about sleeping on the streets, feeding themselves with drugs or earning money through sex than about paying a mortgage for the rest of their lives and raising children in front of a screen. The park is the main character in the story, screaming freedom as much as it exudes danger, and is full of symbols that make up thousands of subplots—a dog with a stump where a paw should be, some stones drawing a circle on the ground.
The fairy tale has no end because each photograph suggests the beginning of a long story.
As a whole, Casa de Campo invites us to get to know its inhabitants, who are only visible through their hoods, and to let the mystery and the fairies remain intact. This is probably as far as one should go in such a unique story.