Miguel Mira - La Romana
Living and working between Madrid, New York and La Romana, Spain, visual artist and photographer Miguel Mira’s work revisits his family’s humble background of cultivating grapes, almonds, and olives. Since early youth, Miguel has been linked to family farming. Despite the difficulty that this entails for an artist, it inspires a sensitive photographic perspective, which has led Miguel to explore themes of human exploitation, the deconstruction of standardized roles, and the overlooked beauty of the working class. Within these themes, he finds a universe full of personalities and unexplored places.
La Romana is an ongoing series depicting a community of workers who are carrying on old traditions. This project is based on the idea of going back to the roots of this kind of society–that of a life far removed and often neglected from the current socio-economic system. Here, Miguel champions the dignity of agricultural work, and the workers’ need to be able to continue developing the products we consume every day.
Growing up in the rural town of La Romana, Miguel worked at his family-owned market, and in fields cultivating olive, almonds, and grapes. These experiences led to forming generational relationships with the locals in the town. In 2018, Miguel began to photograph the town and his grandfathers while at work on their land. Due to the pandemic, he ended up staying in his hometown for the past year; and while the pandemic ripped through Spain, he began working in the fields to help his family.
The portraits in this project are hieratic images that approach unusual characters with a life linked to the agricultural sector. It reflects the field’s physical wear that ages the characters of this rural scene. Miguel’s photography reveals an eagerness to access the beauty linked to the working class in a precise way that results in a singular rawness. This project is aimed at explaining a lifestyle and a social reality that affects the inner part of the country–to show this reality, and in doing so, understand the construction of the town’s identity.
See more of La Romana below!
