Aftersun

Aftersun offers a glimpse into Pol Viladoms's obsession with abandoned architectures and the models of construction and urban planning tied to tourist exploitation. Among these structures, water parks stand out—subjects to which the artist has devoted fifteen years of travel, research, and exploration. His search has led him to cover ever greater distances: from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, from the Sea of Crete to the coasts of Japan and California, visiting more than 50 locations.

Linked to sun-and-beach tourism, water parks began to proliferate during the 1980s and 1990s, offering new forms of hyperbolic amusement by the sea. They emerged as an artificial extension of nature, conceived for a type of tourist consumption that, in essence, turns territory into an extractive resource and transforms the landscape into a disposable product. The absence of planning and analysis led to overconstruction, which in turn resulted in the closure and premature abandonment of many of these parks—a consequence, in part, of competition and of the shift toward a more sustainable and authentic kind of tourism.

The photographs are accompanied by fragments of postcards from the water parks themselves, collected over the past few years. Through their forms, colors, and motifs, these compositions generate a new temporal dialogue with the artist's work and nostalgically revive these spaces, evoking childhood memories that carry us back to fleeting moments of happiness and shared play—now transformed into a promotional lure for future visitors.

Includes a postcard.