Marcelo Londoño

Fields of abandoned green and hope.

​

In the middle of the last century the population of Torre reached 200 people, which it is believed it was the most populated period of the history of this small village on the hinterlands of Portugal. Then there were a variety of migration and emigration waves, towards bigger cities in the seaside or to Canada, France, Brazil, among other countries, forcing the village to drain sons and daughters away from the life of fieldwork and low income with poor education (the elementary school was closed more than 40 years ago).

This is the reality of hundreds of villages in the lonely and abandoned rural countryside of Portugal, characterized by declining and old population. A region characterized by a strong tradition in agriculture that suffered a constant isolation and low investment over the years and witnessed, decade by decade, the departure of young and active residents who sought better life conditions. With the European Union the surviving of local farmers only became harder causing a recession in traditional agriculture too difficult to get through, worsted by the recent European crisis. 

In Torre, the lone principal road to the village brings in the summertime the family who are abroad to visit the ancestors, spend a couple of days knowing that one day will come to say a last farewell. The old men dressed in dark colors continue walking, wretched and abandoned to their “fado” (traditional music from Portugal that also means fate in Portuguese), sharing the silence of memories that lie in the streets of the village, until its extinction.

​

Awards:

Convocatoria Paraty em Foco, Brasil 2013.