Patrick Martin, an alumni of the Master in Photography, is participating in a new edition of the KBr Flama photography exhibition, alongside three other young students from photography schools in Barcelona. Patrick presents his photographic work Looking for George, which invites reflection on the myths that shape collective memory, focusing specifically on Saint George. The KBr Flama exhibition was created with the firm intention of giving visibility to young talents in photography.
The Looking for George project traces the origins of the knight’s story to the town of Montblanc (Tarragona), where the Catalan version of the myth is said to have originated. Through photographs of people, celebrations, and architecture, the series creates a visual labyrinth of narratives and symbols filled with history, where myth lies just beneath the surface. The series is a testament to how collective cultural memory is not a graveyard but a playground shaped by nostalgia and amnesia. Thus, it reflects on the complex, mysterious, and sometimes absurd nature with which narratives about the past are constructed to help shape national consciousness.
The myth of Saint George first emerged in the 5th century AD, when it was said that George had been a Roman soldier martyred two centuries earlier for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. Later, in the 7th century, he was depicted in a church in Cappadocia as a figure on horseback killing snakes. It was only during the Crusades of the 13th century, when his stories reached the West, that he took on the contemporary image of a knight with a red cross, killing a dragon.
