For seven months I have been participating in a neighborhood WhatsApp group called Alerta Mira-sol. In this group there are 164 participants who are in charge of monitoring the Mira-sol neighborhood (Sant Cugat del Vallés, Barcelona) for possible robberies in homes and alerting of any event or person that may seem suspicious.
It is common to consider small communities of single-family houses as a paradisiac, quiet and safe place, like a small island where its inhabitants share a similar model of life. However, I turn into artistic matter the tension of reconciling the privilege of living in a peaceful place like Mira-sol and, at the same time, being exposed to the constant sensation of latent threat and fear. In the project I pay special attention to the behavioral dynamics and control mechanisms that are generated in the group, which allow me to reflect on a culture of fear and paranoia that is more present than ever.
My intention is to map this group with the image and the text and work it graphically in order to make you feel alert and paranoia wherever you are reading it. I am very interested in transferring a WhatsApp chat to paper and being able to read it from a much broader perspective, since sometimes it is the comments themselves that evoke and suggest many images in our mind.
I’m Blanca Munt, a photographer and graphic designer based in Barcelona. My interests have led me to carry out projects that deal with topics such as architecture, landscape, still life and portraiture and currently I have been researching about the culture of fear and paranoia. Actually I’m interested in expanding my knowledge in the fields of editorial design and video. The project Alerta Mira-sol has won the Fiebre Photobook Dummy Award 2020 and the book will be published with Dalpine in 2021.
© text and pictures by Blanca Munt