Mourad is running! It’s 20 meters along this wall on the inner courtyard of
the Bac de Roda Housing Cooperative in Poblenou, a neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain.

The new stop-action installation is meant to freeze for a moment the emotions and sensations that can occur during migration – which many people are forced today to do all over the world, whether they are escaping from hardship, fear, war, environmental extremes, or decimated economies.

Artist Teo Vázquez wants us to think about the distance that people run, and how crossing a simple national boundary can be the difference between life and death. If you studied Western art history, these figures may also call to mind warriors and heroes of so-called classical antiquity.

Here Vázquez says he has captured “through a sequence of movements, different snapshots which reflect a mosaic of unique expressions.” This, he says, is “a figure who symbolically represents all who they have made a migratory journey risking their lives.”

Born in Cadiz, now living in Barcelona, Vázquez is participating in the fourth edition of MURAL / LOCAL, an artistic action that annually renews this wall. He would like to thank his subject Mourad as well as his fellow artist Magda Cwik, who assisted him in hanging the new installation. Our thanks go to photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena, who shares his photos of this new work with BSA readers.

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