Edition
Language
Sunday

12 fictional Polaroids that are love letters on the periphery

Photographing the hypnotic beauty of the outskirts of anthropology

Polaroid of love on the periphery
Polaroids of love on the periphery. Xavier Bertral
Sunday
Xavier Bertral
05/01/2026
12 images

BarcelonaPeriphery_ From Latin peripherīa, and this, from Greek peripheria. Extremities or margins of any entity. Anthropology F. A discipline that studies human beings from a social and cultural perspective, the essence of humanity and their place in the world. Border FThe boundary between two closely related things. The blurred line between belief and superstition. Bordering_ adjAdjacent, territory that is touching the limits or borders of another territory. Satellite_ mThat depends on an external influence. Satellite city. Threshold_ m. Extreme value of a magnitude that, when exceeded, changes the characteristics of the established system. Outskirts_ m. Periphery of a city. Metropolis_ Main city of a region, of a state. Anarchism_ mA social theory that, based on the principle of individual freedom, advocates the abolition of all forms of political power. Libertarian_ Supporter of the ideology and attitudes proposed by anarchism. Emma Goldman_ F. A key anarchist in the development of anarchist philosophy in the first half of the 20th century. Return_ m. The act of returning to the place from which one had departed.

Where the city ends and poetry begins
1 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Where the city ends and poetry begins

A clandestine condition of wayward fairies living on the hinges of a land that always forms a curb—facing the sea, with our backs to the fields damaged by reproaches. Born among cotton wool covered in beehives, we have gutted understanding, but the blood that splashed us was not ours, and they have changed the locks on us, and our mother has collapsed while sirens wail in a time that is in transit—a border line. Hidden in the attic in contorted postures, we paint Indian stripes on the marks of the sheets in case we ever drink at the hands of a gypsy.

Bordering| Carla Fajardo| Vienna Editions
Emerging from the margins
2 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Emerging from the margins

A proposal beyond the mainstream. They are an oasis of punk-rock and much more. Four exceptional musicians who add depth to the spirit and poetry of their vocalist. With a name –Periphery– It's a declaration of intent; they know where they come from and where they want to go, and they demonstrate this in their live performances, which take them from the Vallès region to places as far away as Los Olmos – a town of only one hundred inhabitants. There, they headlined, playing at a surprisingly libertarian marvel called OlmoRock.
Cristina Bergua
3 de 12 Xavier Bertral
Cristina Bergua

South of the Barcelona metropolitan area, the name of Cristina Bergua The story still resonates. He was 16 years old when he disappeared in Cornellà on March 9, 1997. His parents, Luísa and Joan, have kept the fight and his memory alive, turning their pain into a beacon for other families in a similar situation. In his room, untouched, the guitar he played that last Sunday still awaits. And in the outskirts, where memory often fades amidst the changing urban landscape, between apartment blocks and waves of migration, his story persists like a wound that refuses to heal.
Peripheral vision
4 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Peripheral vision

In the blackness of night, the journey is reduced to what the car's headlights illuminate. Shadows and distorted figures dance on the roadside. Everything beyond the light becomes an unreal landscape. It is a territory that escapes the limits of perception, and peripheral vision reveals a new world, akin to darkness.
Emma Goldman Collage
5 de 12 Xavier Bertral
Emma Goldman Collage

Emma Goldman breathedanarchism Like someone opening a window in a closed house, she remained true to a way of being in the world, with which she wanted to change the course of history. Her journey was philosophical, human, and radically social. She embraced feminism, made art and words a space for self-reflection, and moved through her time with a courage that still unsettles. Her life, intersecting with the major events of the century, is a map of encounters with the most vibrant minds of her era. She knew or influenced people of the stature ofEinstein, Piotr Kropotkin, Federica Montseny, Voltairine de Cleyre, George Bernard Shaw, Isadora Duncan, Buenaventura Durruti, Henrik Ibsen, The list is impressive. Her commitment to a fairer, more equal, and more dignified world led her to defend it even after imprisonment. Goldman reminds us that living on the margins creates a new kind of centrality. A woman, an immigrant, poor, and an anarchist, Emma Goldman is an essential figure of the periphery.
Anarchy
6 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Anarchy

Anarchy is that red dawn: out of focus, nothing is written, everything starts again.
No place in the world
7 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
No place in the world

Beneath an ordinary highway bridge lies a space that belongs to no one. It is neither city nor forest, nor even highway. It is neither road nor street, nor any place with a name. It is the void of any map. There lives a person. They inhabit the absolute periphery, surrounded by the noise of engines and the dirty heat of the asphalt. Their belongings are piled up next to the concrete pillars, while the world keeps passing by, more or less at 80 km/h.
The wound
8 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
The wound

On the outskirts of metropolises, railway lines sprawl like cracks. The periphery is not a void: it is a mosaic of dense neighborhoods, each with its own history, coexisting with enormous railway and road corridors like scars. Stitching these boundaries together as points of encounter remains an unresolved challenge for a city that aspires to be truly metropolitan.
January 26, 1939
9 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
January 26, 1939

The Sants road—now a street—hides a past beneath its asphalt. Its cobblestones, once the site of trams, cycling races, and countless train journeys, now lie dormant. Along this road, arriving directly from the fascist frontier, a significant portion of Franco's troops advanced in January 1939. [...] Those cobblestones hold the memory of Bertral stores, pastry shops, and tailors that defined an era. All of this, sealed beneath layers of pavement.
Riera Blanca
10 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Riera Blanca

Barcelona It was the return point and the departure point. Now they call it BCN, more coolMore of a brand, but before, it was that shortened name that defined us. Even as children, we'd come home on Sundays with our faces dirty from fighting for the people's freedom. The car radio was playing... Sports Carousel...announcing that the weekend was over. And right there, on the invisible border between Barcelona and theHospi, The week was beginning.
The sea, for example, in Cunit
11 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
The sea, for example, in Cunit

The exact point where the sea ends and the land begins is a line that never stands still, a fragile border that only exists while we look at it. Ocean seaAlessandro Baricco plays with this idea and transforms it into an everyday space. Let's go in search of this utopian frontier! From the apartment—quite far from the coveted beachfront—the ritual is clear: carry the chair, the umbrella, the bags, the children. Walk, cross the footbridge over the railway line, walk some more. And finally, the land ends and the sea begins.
Go on
12 de 12 XAVIER BERTRAL
Go on

He goes to the margins, where the world ends, and there he understands that it is necessary to return in order to continue.
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