If Rafa Munárriz’s works shaped a written story, it would certainly be set in a city, a buzzing urban public space with its increasingly fast exchanges. The story would be fabricated - a fiction of some sort - but its raw materials and facts would be all about reality.

It’s a hot summer night in Turin, a post-industrial city in the North-West of Italy. A large crowd of football supporters is gathered on the main public square where the final match of the Champions League Juventus - Real Madrid is being live-streamed on big screens. There are literally all kinds of people, from kids to hooligans. The collective excitement alternates moments of religious silence with loud moments of hustle and national choirs. All of a sudden, people hear a thunderous roar coming from one side of the square. The crowd panics and absolute chaos takes over in seconds. The multidirectional streams of running humans are out of control and, by the end of the night, several people are injured badly in the city. Nobody knows with certainty what really happened, but everyone just assumes that a fence fell over and made a big scary noise. The rest of the barriers, obstructing the main exit doors, resulted in a tragic outcome.

The Guilty Fence – 3 June 2017

Press release courtesy Galería Pelaires.