Sanctuary

Ribas’s book deals with the practice and experience of urban space from the point of view of the relationship between centre and periphery, the built and unbuilt environment, and the contemporary fragmentation of the landscape. In a wider context his research considers the relationship of man and territory, engaging with the notion of theproduction of space (ref: Lefevbre), the experience of the landscape from the perspective of the everyday (ref: de Certeau), and the notion of anthropological place (ref: Augé). Crucially, Ribas’ research sets up a dialogue with the disciplines of urban studies, social anthropology and archaeology. The monograph Sanctuary presents the richness of Ribas’s photographic practice and research between 1997 and 2003. It groups together eight series of works that demonstrate his position as ‘one of the most representative and interesting figures in Spanish photography today’ (Alberto Martín, Camera Austruia International, nr 98/2007). The book includes an essay by writer and critical theorist Stephen Barber. It is published by Gustavo Gili SL, an international publisher who has worked with leading figures in the field including Joan Fontcuberta, Geoffrey Batchen, Jeff Wall, Rosalind Krauss, Pierre Bourdieu and David Green. The book received a special mention at the Madrid photographic festival Photo España in 2006, and was reviewed in Camera Austria International, issue number 98/2007. 'The works appearing in this edition give us a glimpse of how Xavier Ribas’s gaze resembles that of the anthropologists, for he focuses on the representation of the game of relations set up between the individual and the territory, particularly in urban contexts'. 'We could say that in this set of works Xavier Ribas suggests we reinstate the experience of places and redefine a concept as complex as that of the threshold, the interstitial space par excellence'.