Tomeu Coll

Night falls in Poison Hills (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2009 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

TOMEU COLL badlands: a handful of bones

mia photo fair 9 - 12 March 2018 · The Mall - Porta Nuova Varinese · Milan, Italy

Tomeu Coll (1981) tackles photography as a way to escape from the world and at the same time to be in touch with its situation. Coll has consolidated his career in the United States in collaboration with American photographers such as Donna Ferrato, and is involved in a photographic project that highlights the capacity of resilience, the dignity, and the uniqueness of individuals in extreme contexts or on the nearby periphery such as in his series Badlands, which is devoted to a rural district close to the city of Palma in Mallorca Island.

Mónica Álvarez Careaga Curator

The day Lauri went into the subspace (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2014 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

Wooden Mask with E.W. Alsace. Strasbourg, 2014 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

Alligator over the swamp (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2013 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cmm

Martha, the Goat (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2018 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

Crossroad (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2008 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

Morgan (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2016 Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm

mia photo fair 9 - 12 March 2018 The Mall - Porta Nuova Varinese. Milan, Italy

This exhition at MIA Photo 2018 has been organized by the Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, a cultural institution from the Government of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The institution’s aim is to promote the arts and culture of the Mediterranean islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.

me and us identity explorations Tomeu Coll Marta Pujades Beatriz Polo Iañez Toni Amengual Curator

Mónica Álvarez Careaga Production and coordination

Karen Müller (IEB) Design

Pizzicato

government of the balearic islands President

Francina Armengol Minister of Culture, Participation and Sport

Francesca Tur Riera General Director of Culture

Joana Català Coll Director of the Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics

Francesc M. Rotger

badlands: a handful of bones “What is born underwater remains underwater” It is said that on full moon nights the dead crawl out to go hunting.

There are tormented souls everywhere. The misery is in their faces.

Stagnant, no money, no fresh blood. Still, this land south of the island gives off a scent of revenge and envy...of patience and smiles alike, as little or nothing matters when one is close to the fire and can be fed for one more day...

There was a time when peasants worked the land in advance, striking the hard stones that for centuries remained under the waters that covered this part of the South of the island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea. Nowadays, many secrets both good and bad remain hidden from the eyes of the millions of visitors to the island. Secrets of the past, trials of a war, of a dictatorship, or of a culture, that are still feared but which at any moment may emerge from the swamp to claim what is theirs.

Tomeu Coll (Mallorca 1981).

He has won several photojournalism and documentary photography awards, including the Illes Balears Photojournalism Award for two consecutive years. He was featured as an Emerging Photographer by the Smithsonian Magazine (USA) for his ongoing project “Badlands,” and he has had solo exhibitions at the Winter Festival of Sarajevo organized by Ellen James and at The National. Gallery in New York. Coll currently shoots for Stern, Der Spiegel, L’Illustre, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and other international publications. His work is mostly based on the subject of forgotten fights as well as places, but always tries to reflect the life that remains when everything looks dead.

In 2014 he was a co-founder of the Erotic Eye Trilogy and Sacred Eye workshops with Donna Ferrato, in New York. His next project will be “Let Us Now Praise 4 Courageous Women” in Sicily. www.tomeucollphoto.com

Skull within the fields (Badlands series).

Mallorca Island, 2010.

Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 48,3 x 33 cm

Horse Cemetery (Badlands series). Mallorca Island, 2006. Paper Canson Infinity, Photo RAG, 310 g 33 x 48,3 cm