Culture

All photos in this exhibition were taken by the children using eight second-hand pocket digital cameras from around the turn of the millennium. For many of the children, aged between six and 13 years old, this was the first time they had ever seen one of these cameras, which brought an extra level of magic to the whole photography process.

After the hottest summer on record, the skies are filled with constant lightning and the fiesta grounds are intermittently flooding. But nothing can stop the smoke machines pluming into the neon lights of the fairground rides, or the pounding of reggaeton while families and friends bump each other on the dodgem dance floor. Here's a snapshot of the summer fiestas in Villa de Vallekas.

After months of drought, Madrid's skies chose the weekend of the San Isidro festival to be the day it poured down over the city. Despite momentarily rushing to shelter in food tents and under pine trees, or even under picnic blankets with complete strangers, nothing could stop the Fiestas San Isidro, as you can see in these photos!

Each year, the barrio of Lavapiés selects a few young girls between ages six and 15 to sit on the makeshift but highly decorated altars surround the popular church of San Lorenzo.

"This building was completed in 1970, that's around when my father moved his workshop in," explains Alberto Crespo Gutiérrez, who owns a small wicker workshop in Villa de Vallecas.

The creators of the grand and ornate red-brick buildings you can find all around Madrid are the same architects, builders and brick merchants who built the pretty little casas bajas in the barrios of Tetuán, Vallecas and Carabanchel. Look closely at Las Ventas bullring, one of Madrid's most famous examples of Moorish Revival architecture, and find the same intricate brickwork decorating little houses all around Madrid.

Welcome to La Model Prison, built 117 years ago on the then-outskirts of Barcelona. The city has expanded around it and Barcelona Sants Station, where the train from Madrid pulls in, is right in front. Inside, however, the prison remains exactly as it was the day inmates were relocated, just four years ago.

In February 1937, Franco’s Nationalist army launched a massive attack on Republican lines in the Jarama valley to the southeast of Madrid. Their objective was to cut off the road between Madrid and the Mediterranean port of Valencia, restricting vital supplies of food, fuel and munitions to the besieged capital.

Estefanía is the proud owner of Mil Duquelas, an anti-racist clothing brand for tops and jewellery designed by her, which she set up during lockdown. Here, she tells her own story.

Located just across the street from Plaza de Nelson Mandela, right in the heart of Lavapiés, sits the clothing store Pantera opened just last month with the mission to help integrate manterxs into the labour market.

Gran Via number 12, a splendid white building dating back to 1914, has seen many things in its 107 years of history, including the Spanish Civil War. But, at ground level lives the legendary Bar Chicote, once crowned the best in the world by MTV in 2004. Its bar top has seated a long list of personalities including Ernest Hemingway, Sofia Loren and Salvador Dalí, as well as royalty, sports, politics and intellectualism.