La Picosa: A Journey Through Abandoned Memories
Visual Research and Archive Book 


Format: 158,5 × 220 mm
Pages: ca 100
Typeface: Cirka & IBM Plex Sans
Binding: Swiss Binding


Practice Concept: Archiving Archive
Lecturer: Jinsu Ahn
Practice Photography
Lecturer: Kambiz Shafei
HGK FHNW
Basel, 2021 

The project explores through visual research an abandoned archaeological site called "La Picosa”.  The goal was to archive the material found at the site and tell the story of its discovery, producing a book-archive somewhere between an archaeological report and an intimate diary.

La Picosa is a small hill in the Spanish interior. What seems like a place of nowhere, a desolate park, slowly reveals itself to be a site full of traces, fragments, mysteries and ruins. A place dense with meaning and auratic presence, but fragmented, abandoned, and bare.

Through a series of trips to the site, conversations with locals, and historical research, I began to explore the traces of the civilization that inhabited the hillside. The project developed through different media and approaches: visual research, photography, installation, scientific writing, and book making.