© Alfio Tommasini, from the series Antonio & Paloma
© Alfio Tommasini, from the series Antonio & Paloma
© Alfio Tommasini, from the series Antonio & Paloma
“Another day dawns on the Manzanares river. In the midst of houses, bridges, construction sites, a beer factory and a soccer stadium there is a container where Antonio and Paloma have lived for the last three years. A Spanish-Gipsy couple that came to Madrid from Asturias in the beginning of the nineties, in the search of a new life.
Antonio is 53 years old. His days are marked by the sunbeams, he has breakfast, tidies up himself and then he goes to work. He walks along Madrid his smile and his car full of scrap. Antonio is man of routine; he peddles his wares in the small street-markets all
morning and then goes home after a trip, perhaps to recover the lost levity.
Paloma is 43 years old, and, like Antonio, she makes each day as it comes. She is a housewife, one of whose principal duties is care of his husband, beside to wait him anxiously when he’s gone. In the afternoon, she rests at his side and spends hours as participant and spectator to her favourite soap operas. They have 4 children to whom every night they devote their last thought before falling asleep.
I was seeking different mode of living in the city and a glimmer that could bring to a new human relation. Destiny and luck brought me to a place where two people have opened their selves and their home to me and where time has made a strong bond of friendship. An environment, sometimes difficult, but always full of tenderness and simplicity. I have spent days and nights with them, in a space so small that it creates its own sense of intensity and intimacy.
A home that is custom made, like maybe all homes, where the quality of life depends on how you live it, and Antonio and Paloma have a love that reaches beyond the space where they open their eyes every morning.”
Alfio Tommasini
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