Cesar Santiago – War is not a game

Cesar Santiago – War is not a game

By Kaymir Stark

Cesar Santiago works as a web designer/graphic designer in Granada, Spain. He studied design at the School of Art of Granada and there it was where he got his first contact with analogical photography and the traditional processes of developing. Since then, his little camera always goes with him. We had a small chat to find out why the toy soldiers are fighting our battles at night.

“For some year, the Spanish economy has developed thanks to he so-called ‘brick economy’. Construction companies built an excessive amount of housing and everybody wanted to buy a new dwelling. For that reason, housing prices started to rise disproportionately, and some people speculated with them. Houses were bought and sold a couple of years later just to get huge benefits. And sooner or later the system had to collapse, as it did. Most construction companies have broken or are on the verge of breaking. Many people working in this sector are now jobless and, moreover, their possibilities to get a new employment are scarce.”

“This little photographic feature has is the tribute I pay to one of these people. An old friend of mine that got unemployed after the mortgage meltdown. Since he did not find a new job, decided to enroll in the army until the end of the crisis. Currently he is in Lebanon. He works defusing mines. Mines installed by armies unknown to him, but he is now obliged to remove them day by day, thus risking his life.”