A child in Rio, 1946
Francesc Riuró Llapart
Ajuntament de Girona / CRDI. CC BY-NC-ND
In the 1940s, thousands of people living in southern Spain moved to the north looking for a job. These women and men withstood hard times and in many cases succeeded in acquiring a house and integrating into the Catalan community. Yet about 12% of them ended up living in ‘barraca’ (shack) suburbs, mostly situated on city mounds where the stones used as a building material were ready at hand. This image portrays a child living in Rio: a suburb next to the river Ter in Girona. The house number on the left suggests a residential, homely environment, but two elements hint at what the surroundings are really like: the downward positioning of the child’s feet, pointing to a rough, sloping surface; and the slice of background on the right. There are no adjoining houses or buildings here, just a desolate space with scattered rubble.
