BELÉN DE BENITO

Born in Cantabria, Belén de Benito is a renowned creative photographer who knows how to make an impact with the simplest things, to make people think with her images and let their imaginations fly with her words. Her website, www.eldiecisiete.com, says it all. She’s a woman who is approachable, brave and always eager to explore new territories and projects. For Belén, life in a village is the best thing you could have. This is how she defines herself in her blog:

“My name is Belén de Benito. Also known as “eldiecisiete“. I’ve been behind my camera for more than 30 years. And I love it. I do many things. Portrait, family, children, babies, weddings, publicity, product, personal projects. Always working with a creative approach. I’ve received some awards, many published photos, in my country, in other countries. But I don’t want to bore you. That’s not the point. I just want you to know that I’m absolutely happy when I can pause time with my camera. I can’t stop observing, watching. From the moment I open my eyes when I wake up to when I close them at the end of the day. Photography is my life”.

Project.

Belén de Benito is a Cantabria-born artist whose discipline is photography mixed with literature. She presents the 2019 intervention called NEXO, an artistic project that resulted in large-scale photos that follow along the road to Ventosa from the Camino de Santiago and into the town, encouraging us to reflect on what unites human beings, no matter where we’re from.

The permanent installation by Cantabria-born photographer Belén de Benito was inaugurated on 5 October 2019 as part of the 8th edition of 1 Km de Arte, stretching across the landscape of vineyards and open fields that separate the Camino de Santiago from the Riojan town of Ventosa. The installation features 12 large-scale images on aluminium and steel. A different, unique and extraordinary route, which takes photography out of a conventional exhibition hall and turns the landscapes of La Rioja into improvised gallery walls.

Through images and writing, NEXO is a reflection on the memories that unite us all. Memories of childhood, of what matters. De Benito worked in Ventosa for roughly six months, using her camera to capture the relationship between locals and pilgrims through graphic and written documentation. She also held a “workshop of memories” with locals and pilgrims, an initiative that recovered, in physical form, the importance of memory through old photographs and almost-forgotten stories. NEXO is a collective project, one made possible thanks to the generosity of the people of Ventosa who allowed Belén to enter into and portray their lives in a completely natural way. NEXO is an invitation to reflect on what life is all about, on what really matters, what’s always been around yet never appreciated. The everyday. What we already have, what goes unnoticed because it’s so commonplace. A father’s embrace. A mother’s kiss. Childhood friends. Everything explained is understood when the passer-by walks past the 12 images along the marked path. A sensory experience of returning to one’s origins.

Process.

May: Belén arrives in Ventosa and begins to observe and explore the town without the residents’ knowing about it. We want her to have a clean, unprejudiced impression. She takes numerous photographs of visitors, pilgrims and locals.
June: The project is launched in the festival guide. Interview with Belén de Benito and publication of various photographs.
7 July: Festival celebrating the Feast of the Virgin. Belén experiences and photographs the celebration of the Virgin from her perspective.
27 July: Weekend in Ventosa, photography workshop, searching for insights among images. The workshop focused on the importance of memory through photography. Recovering the thrill of our memories in a physical form. The participants provided information about their lives and their families through photography, sharing old photos, photo albums, letters, documents, passports, stickers… More than 50 people participated in the workshop, mainly pilgrims and town residents.
25 August: Mercado del Trato. Belén held a workshop (Inspirations) over the course of the day, prompting the participants to reflect through photography. The participants reflected on previously developed photographs.
Septiembre:Public vote. De Benito took more than two thousand photographs, out of which she selected 20 to be put to a popular vote, with the twelve photographs that received the most votes becoming the ultimate embodiment of the NEXO project.
1-4 October: The installation is set up.
5 october: The permanent installation by Cantabria-born photographer Belén de Benito was inaugurated on 5 October 2019 as part of the 8th edition of 1 Km de Arte, stretching across a landscape of vineyards and open fields along the branch of the Camino de Santiago that runs through the Riojan village of Ventosa. The installation features 12 large-scale images on aluminium and steel. A different, unique and extraordinary route, which takes photography out of a conventional exhibition hall and turns the landscapes of La Rioja into improvised gallery walls.

Inauguration.

We inaugurated NEXO on 5 October 2019, a work by Belén de Benito for Ventosa and its 1 Kilómetro de Arte initiative.

Belén de Benito is a Cantabria-born artist whose discipline is photography mixed with literature. She has been working on NEXO—an artistic project whose final result is large-scale photos that will follow along the fork to Ventosa from the Camino de Santiago and into the town, encouraging us to reflect on what unites human beings, no matter where we’re from—since May. We walked along the route with Belén, looked at the photographs, saw the other installations along 1 Km de Arte and finished it all off with a tasting.