Located 30 km northwest of Barcelona, Terrassa is the capital, along with Sabadell, of the Catalan region of Vallès Occidental. Although its origins go way back to Roman times, it wasn’t until the 19th century that the city exploded economically and demographically thanks to the textile industry that arose as a result of the Industrial Revolution.
Such growth, as vertiginous as it was disorderly, came to a stagnation with the oil crisis of the 1970s and picked up again with the international migration waves of the early 21st century. Today, with 225,277 inhabitants according to the 2023 census, Terrassa is the fourth most populous city in Catalonia and the twenty-second in the whole of Spain.
In Sede Egarensis is an ongoing, long-term visual exploration of the urban, suburban and peri-urban landscape of Terrassa. A series of long walks through the different neighborhoods, residential and industrial areas of the city have lead me to start building a personal archive of images with recurring themes such as vernacular and self-built architecture, the gaps and margins of the urban fabric, evidences of past times and signs of possible futures.
The evolution of the project can be viewed in full, as it’s being regularly updated, at insedeegarensis.com.
Xavier Aragonès (Pineda de Mar, 1979) is a photographer based in Terrassa, Spain. His work mainly revolves around the effects, sometimes subtle and sometimes traumatic, of human activity on the places surrounding us.
He has published two photobooks: O. O. O. and Twentysix Abandoned Catalan Gasoline Stations. The latter has also been featured as an exhibit in the Revela-T (Barcelona, 2018) and Festimatge (Calella, 2021) photography festivals.
© Text and pictures by Xavier Aragonès
