Direct to Madrid | olga-olivera-arte

Direct to Madrid. Project and residency at Kárstica, Cuenca, with the support of La Neomudéjar, Madrid.https://karstica.org/olga-olivera-tabeni-directo-a-madrid

“Andrés used to show up at dusk, in his white van. However, one night he arrived on a bicycle, crossing the train tracks. We spotted him as he moved through that intermediate space between light and darkness. Later, he revealed that he had crossed the giant railway structure of the Milano Bridge, on the outskirts of Cañada, with his Lada Niva.”

“And that last night—my son and I—ended up eating alone, there on the tracks, with that improvised tablecloth-sheet, under the creaking of the sleepers and the eerie light of the station lamps, now purposeless as a place for passengers. It was a strange, romantic, bittersweet ending, but also a fitting image that could well represent the idea of the emptied Spain linked to the disappearance of conventional trains. The end of the residency couldn’t have been any other way.”

“Direct to Madrid” is an artistic project born from research into the historic and now-defunct Valencia-Cuenca-Madrid railway line, known as Direct to Madrid. It reflects on the contrast between the modern infrastructures of high-speed trains and these old, abandoned railways. It questions whether these new structures truly unify the region, as suggested by a sign at the disused Castillejo del Romeral station, or if the old railway connections were the ones that truly united territories.
The artist recounts her experience during the residency at Kárstica, one of the stations on this inactive line, while following the tracks from Valencia’s outskirts to Madrid.

The project’s images distance themselves from the clichéd depictions of abandoned station buildings. Yi-Fu Tuan, in “Romantic Geography: In Search of the Sublime Landscape,” explains how the romantic notion of the landscape still inhabits our contemporary world. Direct to Madrid focuses on its flipside: the incoherences and strangeness encountered along the way. It describes surreal scenes at abandoned train stations, with lamps lit in the middle of nowhere and newly installed elements in desolate settings. The artist reflects on the absurd investment of resources in infrastructures—a deception—faced with their imminent closure.

The abandonment, decline, and dismantling of conventional railways in Spain are troubling. They contribute to rural depopulation, territorial disarticulation, and feed into the phenomenon of emptied Spain.

Over the years, the scarce resources allocated to these infrastructures have led to their obsolescence, the loss of users, and their eventual closure. On the horizon, vast depopulated territories emerge, reflecting a fading rural world. A demographic desert lingers, as Paco Cerdà describes in “The Last Ones: Voices of the Spanish Lapland.” The reality consists of traveling merchants, strange bus schedules, summer residents who are descendants of former inhabitants, robberies in houses left unoccupied for long periods, the progressive disappearance of community meeting places, and kilometers of tracks leading nowhere.

In the midst of this situation, there are those who resist the collapse of the rural world: Carlos Javier with his wicker factory, Mimbres Moriana, one of the last of its kind; Miguel, the “Lone Explorer,” a urbex YouTuber documenting abandoned tracks and stations; or the artists at the Kárstica residencies, with projects connected to nature. Also, those who have returned to repopulate and believe in a rural revival, like Andrés with his dog Pantera—known on Instagram as “panteraahorapinta”—or Gunther, a carpenter and part-time artist who lives in a remote, self-built house. Among this gallery of characters is Eduardo, who lived for years in the lost station of Palancares, once famous for a major railway accident

that occurred in 1960.

“Direct to Madrid” acknowledges the potential that reopening these railway infrastructures could have for retaining and revitalizing local communities. This becomes even more relevant in the face of the impending climate emergency, which underscores the urgent need to promote public transportation.

This project is a continuation of “Emergency Rescue,” where the artist follows the Baeza-Saint Girons railway line into French territory and recounts the stories found along these tracks. A project similarly filled with strangeness, incoherences, historical remnants, and traces of humanity.