Andrea Durán: Mi hermana tiene miedo del fin del mundo

Andrea Durán: Mi hermana tiene miedo del fin del mundo by Daniel GeorgeMarch 24, 2025

©Andrea Durán

For the next several days, we have the pleasure of looking at a the work of a few artists who submitted work during our most recent call-for-submissions. As I have been looking through all of these entries, I find myself excited by the conceptually and aesthetically inventive ways in which photographers embrace inquiry–and how they are able to transmit their curiosities to us, the viewers. Today, we will see and hear from Andrea Dúran and her project Mi hermana tiene miedo del fin del mundo.

Andrea Durán (1998) is a visual artist based in Madrid and focused on author photography. She is co-founder of the photographic and publishing collective UMEDO, dedicated to self-publishing fanzines. He is currently part of El Local, Madrid. Her work has been exhibited in different cities such as CDMX, Madrid or Rotterdam. She has also self-published a photobook with her project ‘Madriguera’. Her interests are focused on topics such as identity, territory and the contemporary relationships of human beings with their environment.

©Andrea Durán

Mi hermana tiene miedo del fin del mundo

A few years ago, my sister began to have anxiety and an irrational and perhaps exaggerated fear: she feared that the world would end. This fear was caused by the future forecasts predicted by the media and science itself, regarding the climate crisis.

Starting from this anecdote, I build a dialogue between the images and my sister’s diaries, written at the time when she suffered from this fear. Also complete with texts taken from conversations had with her now, when her maturity seems to give a more critical response.

The project is a mixture of fiction, fear and, above all, the imagination that grows in new generations where the future does not seem to be the promising place they said it would be. A place distorted by a fear that may seem irrational and childish but that, at the same time, leads to seeking alternatives and solutions, as an act of rebellion against conformity.

My sister is afraid of the end of the world is built through all these concepts, it talks about emotions, fears, hopes, mutating colors, small animals, artificiality, starless nights. Because, talking to her and taking the photos, I realize that the end of the world is also those little things that already happen, like the moths getting lost in a night full of light, the water turning chemical colors or that the heat seemed to come from a Sun that was getting closer and closer.

©Andrea Durán

Daniel George: You write about your sister’s fears that led to the beginning of this work. What prompted you to begin making these images in dialogue with her diaries and experiences?

Andrea Durán: This project actually began with a vaguer idea about the feeling of anxiety and the emotion of solastalgia that many young people suffer due to climate change. It was during a conversation about the project that she reminded me of the anxiety she experienced as a child related to the issue. From there, we looked up her diaries, and I decided to use her story as the guiding thread or script for the entire project. I made her somewhat the protagonist and, at the same time, the voice of the younger generations.

©Andrea Durán

DG: What brought about your general interest in exploring the relationship between human beings and the environment through your creative practice?

AD: From a very young age, I’ve been deeply interested in the diverse ways we interact with our environment and how we understand it within a specific system. It wasn’t until I began working on more specific artistic and photographic projects that I realized that the themes that interested me were all leading toward the same thing. I believe that reflecting on the way we relate to the natural environment today will help deconstruct it and work on new ways of understanding our position in a living world as a species, and I believe this is urgent today.

©Andrea Durán

DG: I am interested in this open conversation between your sisters emotions (through her written words) and your photographs. Would you share more about the collaboration with your sister for this series?

AD: At first, my sister was very amused by the idea, and at the same time, a little embarrassed. Of course, she now understands those emotions of “fear of the end of the world” as something more childish and exaggerated, but talking about it, we both think it’s a fear we still have, but in a different way. The world isn’t going to end, but we do have the feeling that our futures won’t be able to be imagined the way previous generations had. And perhaps that was the key: to build new ways of imagining new futures where the idea that we are part of something from which we are not independent prevails. And, the more I think about it, I also believe that one of the most beautiful things about this project is that it was created through conversations between two people, and that the result was the translation of the emotions of one of them through the images of the other.

©Andrea Durán

DG: In some of your images, you use a harsh light source that almost feels confrontational—the portrait where you are close to the subject and their eyes are tightly closed comes to mind. Would you talk more about your intentions with the visual language of these photographs?

AD: In most of the images, I tried to adopt a cold or distant stance. I wanted some photos, like this one in particular, to feel like a blow, something harsh, far from deromanticized. In some photos, I even liked to adopt a “scientific” approach, where the object simply sits there and is photographed. But at the same time, as a whole, the images convey a certain instability, as if something isn’t right. I wanted to create a critique, where young people also have a voice and are part of the project. It’s them (us) who are speaking or shouting through the photos.

©Andrea Durán

DG: It goes without saying that individuals often use their creative practice to process emotions—particularly those that difficult or challenging. Though this project deals with your sister’s feelings, I am curious if it provided any sort of consolation. What are your thoughts on this?

AD: As I said before, I think the most enriching thing about this project is that I worked through conversations with someone close to me, in which she expressed her emotions through my photos. But beyond that, throughout this entire process, I also included myself in that young, screaming voice. In a way, I’m also very satisfied to have turned my sister into a fictional “spokesperson” for a group to which I belong. I’m the first person to feel afraid of thinking about my future, and I think fears are better overcome and better understood if you know you’re sharing them with other people. This project has helped me learn more about the climate problem and, at the same time, has placed me in a position where I’m not alone and where I also have hope.