Malgrat El Mar

Malgrat El Mar plays with the name of the coastal town Malgrat de Mar and its literal meaning in Catalan, “despite the sea.” The sea here is both landscape and border, distance, risk, and passage. In this town on the Catalan coast, young migrants, mainly from West Africa and Somalia, arrive after crossing the Mediterranean, beginning a period of waiting and uncertainty inside a local reception centre. Not all make it across, and the title also holds this absence. Over several months, I documented daily life from an embedded position working within the centre, moving between language classes, administrative processes, and the rhythms of everyday waiting. The images reflect this suspended time between arrival and what comes next, where life slowly begins again, despite the sea.