Because of the funny and colourful panorama, the "Ricos" frequently appear in guides, postcards and promotional posters of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Still, they are not part of the recommended tourist routes. It is a fact that is surprising because, from its privileged location, you can enjoy unbeatable views of the port and the entire east coast. For the tourist, they become like this in a multicoloured and picturesque backdrop reflecting the Arcadian and paradisiacal fiction with which the Canaries are identified. The darkness and urban lighting transform that chaotic agglomeration of colourful houses into an elegant and even idyllic night image. However, an inner journey through its silent passages and alleys reveals that nocturnality, far from masking why the visitor is advised only distant contemplation, reveals powerfully the uncomfortable reality that is trying to hide. With this work, I intend to reflect on the processes of rationalization that tourist propaganda uses and how these intervene in the perception of the territory and this in turn in the collective identity of its inhabitants. Through mixed processes and alternative photographic materials, the photographic document becomes an aesthetic object, turning a disadvantaged territory into a landscape.

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About

Lidia Esther Díaz Gil was born in Arrecife, Lanzarote in 1972. At the age of fifteen, she received her first camera and began to enter the magic and mystery of the darkroom. She studied Fine Arts and graduated from the University of Barcelona with a degree in Etching Arts Printing. After finishing her studies, she worked as a printer at the Línea Taller, collaborating in the edition of graphic works by authors such as Joan Hernández Pijuan, Jose Manuel Broto and Susana Solano. She finally found her calling in teaching and research. One foot in the analogue and the other in the digital. This is how her photographic and artistic practice could be defined. She slides between the care and slowness of the artisan processes, the love of materials and the versatility and agility of the digital world. With their gaze fixed on the everyday, issues such as identity, and the degradation of the environment and heritage, focus their discursive concerns.