Twenty years ago the tides of life brought Teo Vázquez to Catalonia, the encounter with the gypsy people dates back to that time. The interest in their culture / folklore (flamenco), nomadism and many of their customs, connect him with his own roots, ways of living, feeling, and with the land where he was born: Cadiz, Andalusia. References such as the poet Federico García Lorca, Camarón de la Isla, great gypsy singer, or the photographer Josef Koudelka, have been important doors from art for his explorations.

When he arrived in Barcelona, he was surprised at how the Romany community had been brought together in the same space, without taking into account their different communities and their cultural specificities. His encounter with the Roma people opened up a world of knowledge that connected him to his childhood experience in Cádiz. From there he began to photograph neighbourhoods such as La Mina, La Catalana and the neighbourhood of San Roque, which is the neighbourhood where he lives today. "Every day I come across roosters in the street, bonfires and other celebrations and customs of its neighbours, the gypsy people," says the artist.

The project proposes a photographic mural on the exterior wall of the main façade of the Santa Mònica, with a large-format portrait of the gypsy patriarch Sebastián Fernández Cortés "Tío Bastián", holding a stick in his left hand, with the head of a horse carved in gold, as a representation of recognition within the community. And with his right arm supporting a rooster, a controversial figure in the broad iconographic and symbolic spectrum in the West. The mural will be displayed on the exterior wall of the first floor façade of the Santa Monica. The image of the power and resistance of a people transporting a dimension of invisibilised knowledge.

Teo Vázquez (Cadiz, 1975) is a photographer and visual artist based in Barcelona. Trained in photography at Hackney Community College in London and at the Instituto de Estudios Fotogràficos de Catalunya, he has exhibited in galleries and festivals around the world. In places such as the United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Mexico, the United States, Uruguay and Cuba, you can find his work looking back at you from murals full of human expression, struggle and humour. Urban art projects, murals and advertising are part of his professional trajectory.

His unlimited interest in people and their experiences, nomadism, uprooting, the street, purity and everything that moves him make portraiture his most direct channel of expression.