MATADOR MAG: UTOPIA / Campaigns
Conceived and produced in Spain, Matador is an eminently international magazine. Its production is in the hands of the very best signatures. Photographers, writers and artists are the authors of a unique product in which the standard of the texts and the impact of the images have become an obsession. Born in 1995, it is published yearly and is committed to producing 28 issues over the course of 28 years, from 1995 to 2022.
Manuel was asked to collaborate creating an article in volume G of Matador, dedicated to Utopia with a capital U: to all of mankind's utopias or to one specific one, to the virtue of dreaming of them and the need to fight for them. To those that were, to those that will be. In short, to what each author who has participated in this issue understands by utopia.
"Prayers answered" was a proposal presenting in the format of an advertising campaign, a model to sell a product on the rise: Utopia, an ethereal concept that, for the poor of the earth, materializes in getting to enter a rich country.
he Strait of Gibraltar is a channel of water between the southern coast of Spain and the northern coast of Morocco. The strait is the only connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Because of the location and access it provides to the rest of the Mediterranean, the Strait has played an important historic role in the connection between Africa and Europe.
Many migrants spend years travelling across sub-Saharan and north Africa, then live in makeshift camps in Morocco for months, waiting for the right moment to complete their dream of making it to Europe through the straight of Gibraltar, either by sea or by storming the fences at the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta.
The journey across the strait is extremely dangerous due to the small boats used as transportation, as well as the presence of large freighters traveling through to reach the Mediterranean. The danger of migration in the Mediterranean became evident when a boat of African migrant capsized near the Italian island of Lampedusa. At least 111 people died and more than 200 people are still believed missing.
Unfortunately, more tears are shed for prayers answered than for the unanswered ones.