Txema Salvans: The Waiting Game III

Txema Salvans: The Waiting Game III by Deanna DikemanAugust 31, 2024

With the dog days of summer on our doorsteps. we thought we’d share three days of posts on dogs. Enjoy the last days of summer…and the dogs!

I first learned of Txema Salvans’s work from an Instagram post recommending his book The Waiting Game III. Since the photographs included dogs, I was curious to see more. All it took was a few swipes through the post and I was ordering a book for myself. This was one of those projects where I wanted to see all the images, not just the ten on view in a small rectangle on my phone. The book contains pastel-colored landscape photographs, each showing a dog.

I must admit I was lured in by the dogs, yet I had a lot more to think about as I turned the pages. Txema told me, “As you see, my dog project, unlike most dog projects does not have an intention to show how much fun they are. My project is a much more critical look at the kind of relationship we have with them, but mostly I use the figure of the dog to understand the kind of relationship we have with our natural environment.”

“The Waiting Game” (TWG) is a photographic project comprising three books. Each book delves into a precise theme that simultaneously refers to three circumstances defining us as a species: sociability, self-awareness, and our relationship with the physical environment. This trilogy focuses on a dystopian portrayal of these circumstances, grounded in their respective themes. The photos are taken along the Spanish Mediterranean coast with an analog plate camera following a very rigorous working protocol based on three fundamental premises repeated throughout the three books:

Distance: The photos are taken at a distance from the subject that allows showing the environment and protecting the identity of the character. The distance emphasizes the context, the landscape.
Light: The photos are taken in full daylight, never at sunset or sunrise; harsh light reinforces the desolate character of the images as well as the rigorous description and fragility of the subjects.
The moment: The shutter is always released at the moment of waiting, devoid of any sexual or emotional display, ultimately placing the protagonists in an anticlimactic state that evokes a slow and melancholic progression.

“The Waiting Game III” concludes this trilogy that began in 2005. The relationship between humans and dogs serves to explore how humans interact dystopically with their environment. The focus of my work is on dogs tethered to chains, walls, or fences of factories, industrial estates, farms, properties… These dogs wait and protect, born and dying in the same place, living under the control of their owner—a human capable, in many cases, of emotionally distancing themselves from their animal to cruel extremes. –Txema Salvans

Txema Salvans (born 1971, Barcelona) is a Catalan photographer who over the past two decades has developed a documentary and artistic approach outside the usual platforms of photojournalism, including photographic essays.

Joan Fontcuberta has described his work as a “balance between critical thinking and poetic humor.” His book “Nice To Meet You” (2005) received the 2015 Photo España award for best photobook. “The Waiting Game” (2014) was awarded as the best Ibero-American photobook. Additionally, RM has also published “The Waiting Game 2″ and “The Waiting Game 3.”

“My Kingdom” and “Perfect Day” were published by the prestigious English publisher MACK in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

Txema Salvans’s work has been featured in major international media such as Le Monde, Suddeustsche Zeitung Magazine, Stern, New York Times, Welt der Frau, NZZ, Liberation, Monocle, Colors, Big Mag, Vice, Marie Claire, GQ France, Elephen, British Journal of Photography, Wallpaper, ID Magazine, Matador, and El País Semanal.

He has exhibited his work at the Centre D’Art Contemporani Arts Santa Mònica, Museum of Contemporary Art Hamburg, Museum fur Photographie Braunschweig, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía, Museo Universidad de Navarra, Fundación Fotocolectania, and Fundación Vila Casas.

Follow Txema on Instagram: @txemasalvans