After a decade of astonishing growth in the housing market, the bubble had burst. Unemployment climbed to 20 percent in 2008, peaking in 2013 at 27 percent with heavy losses in the construction sector. Housing prices would eventually decrease in 37 percent between 2007 and 2013. Redondo became obsessed with these empty neighborhoods which had come to symbolize what was wrong with Spain’s economy. He started driving around the country looking for them for what would become his photo series, “Sand Castles.” A decade later, he has published the second part of the project, “Sand Castles (Part II).” [...]
“Many of these sites are now locked down or there is security. And from the ground I was always frustrated because I didn’t had a shooting angle that would give a general perspective,” Redondo explains. “From the air this all becomes easier to understand.” [...]
“In Spain, you don’t talk about these sites anymore,” Redondo explains. “They are far from the cities, a little lost from plain sight. And politicians are always telling us that Spain is better—that we are growing again.” These projects remain there as scars in the landscape, without plans to either finish them or demolish them.
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