Jon Gorospe
Rethinking the city
With his images, Jon Gorospe invites us to rethink the city, in conversation with one of the main events at PHotoESPAÑA 2026: ‘Volver a imaginar’ [Reimagining]. An exhibition that brings together big names in photography. It aims to record the urban landscape, reflect on its issues — homogenised cities, public spaces turned into commercial commodities or hostile architecture — and highlight how it impacts people’s lives.
When Jon Gorospe (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1986) steps onto the street with camera in hand, he becomes a flaneur, a wanderer moved by curiosity and intuition. The fruit of his contemplation is a body of work that analyses the impact humans have on the landscape, with cities at the pinnacle. His purpose: to point out certain issues and, why not, offer either present or future solutions: “I would like my archive to be revisited in the future. For it to be used to observe the evolution of certain urban issues and rethink solutions,” Jon declares. We are lucky that we get to do this in the present, either at Volver a imaginar [Reimagining] —from the 5th of June to the 27th of September at the Círculo de Bellas Artes— or at Urban Morphologies —until the 28th of June at Kutxa Fundazioa (Tabakalera)—.
The first is one of the main events at PHotoESPAÑA 2026 — sponsored by Iberia —, including an extended PHotoESPAÑA PRO Talento a bordo programme. Based in Oslo for more than a decade, Jon is excited to be exhibiting in Madrid and to do so alongside artists such as Aleix Plademunt, Ira Lombardía, Txema Salvans, Lurdes Basolí, Rafael Trapiello and Arguiñe Escandón, among others. He wishes talent was more widely known in Scandinavia: “Spanish talent isn’t as well-known as it should be. Here, in Scandinavia, it is rare to see an exhibition by a Spanish photographer. I have recently opened an art space in Oslo alongside some colleagues, and I intend to schedule exhibitions and activities to fill that void. I want Umarell to become the bridge between the country I live in and the one I come from.” The second, Urban Morphologies, brings together a selection of projects in which Jon explores the capacity for urban architecture to transform people’s lives. Thus, it addresses themes such as the loss of identity of cities, the growing presence of advertising in public spaces, hostile architecture designed to exclude instead of include, etc. Issues that, as we will discover next, caught Jon’s attention from an early age.
You grew up next to a skate park and, even though it may sound strange, both your passion for photography and the way you understand it come from that urban setting, right?
Yes, when I was little, I started practicing sports related to that space: skateboarding, rollerblading and BMX, especially. It gave me a rather playful way of understanding the city. Photography came at the same time because I was interested — I’ve always had cameras — and I would document what we were up to: trips, competitions, our lifestyle… A symbiosis combining the city and photography. As I grew up, I started letting go of my bike and picking up my camera more often.
You have turned the urban landscape into the backbone of your work, which encourages you to travel quite a lot. How important is travelling itself within your activity?
Extremely important. I belong to a generation that saw how travel was democratised. I took a running start because flights were cheap and many European cities were a stone’s throw away. Since I was interested in photography, I started travelling a lot and integrating that idea of photography city trips. In fact, my first projects were intricately connected to that idea of travelling, of moving from one place to another. I have always been interested in the idea of Europe as a common territory that helped us to study abroad, travel without a passport and establish connections.
“Since I was interested in photography, I started travelling a lot and integrating that idea of photography city trips”
In your series, you reveal the growing depersonalisation of cities. For someone born in a region with such an easily recognisable identity as the Basque Country, is that process particularly painful?
It’s a paradox: on the one hand, the loss of identity in spaces is a painful process but, at the same time, it is part of human evolution; migration and cultural exchange have always existed. I feel sad but also fascinated. What I am most interested in is the exponential nature of that process in recent years. I am a migrant — I have lived in Norway for the last 10 years — and that new familiarity, fruit of homogenised cities, stays with me. In the end, since places tend to be similar to each other, there is nothing strange and that helps you become better integrated.
You have intervened in public spaces and suggested solutions to improve the day-to-day lives of citizens. Can photography be a tool for social and political change?
I think so, it’s worth trying (laughs). I always say that my work has three pillars. The first is creating an archive, which is related to purely recording phenomena in the city. The second is exhibition projects where I address very specific topics. And the third is related to intervening in a space. I like the idea of recording and documenting to then discuss issues and, if possible, propose solutions. For example, I made a light installation in some tunnels near Oslo. They weren’t nice to walk through because they were very dark, and I suggested creating some light boxes with hundreds of fragments of sky that people had recorded and posted on the internet from that same area.
“I like the idea of recording and documenting to then discuss issues and, if possible, propose solutions”
What does taking part in the Volver a imaginar [Reimagining] exhibition and being part of a lineup of great national and international photographers mean to you?
I’m pleased. They are colleagues I have been following for years and it’s nice to get together for events like this. The idea of Volver a imaginar [Reimagining] is related to rethinking, even if from a utopic point of view. And, when we discuss photography, not only the themes we address are reimagined, but also the medium itself. In my case, the piece will be a video mapping installation with animated photos from my project The Grid, where I address the idea of commuting, how we move around in big cities. Many people spend two hours a day on public transport to get to work and the series explores that insanity.
Rationality and emotion coexist in your photography. How do you achieve that balance when capturing spaces?
I work with a flaneur attitude, wandering around and taking spontaneous photos driven by emotion. Then, when I start archiving, the images become part of a conversation, and I detect patterns that are repeated and themes I want to delve into. Even though my projects have that rational component, I don’t want to leave intuition aside. Intuition is especially important when you work on the street because it leads you to places you hadn’t thought of initially. As the photographer Paul Graham used to say, I like to go out with an idea and let life lead me in a different direction.
You’ve spent more than a decade creating your art outside of Spain. How does Spanish photographic talent look from a distance?
In Spain, there is plenty of talent, but sometimes institutions aren’t up to promoting that talent. The most significant difference is that, in Norway, many artists make it thanks to institutions, while in Spain, it is despite them. The good thing is that those who do succeed are Spartans, ready for battle. All systems have winners and losers, but ours makes really good people who are well-trained and with a strong conceptual framework.
