Smile, You are in Spain

This is the final fantastical universe carefully crafted by Luís Lázaro Matos, telling yet another thought provoking story.

‘Smile! You Are in Spain’ is the slogan of a well-known, five year-long advertising campaign launched in 2004 to promote tourism in Spain, using photographs of young people enjoying Spain, surrounded by sunny landscapes, at unspoiled beaches or in front of iconic monuments. Yet Spain was badly affected by the global financial crisis of 2008; while promoting such an ideally positive take of Spain under Juan Miró’s sunny emblem, the country was inwardly succumbing to a profound and severe economic downturn. Luís Lázaro Matos uses this well-known campaign to inform a project which intends to look at how clichés on countries and their culture become promotional commodities and how landscape, traditions, populations and art are rendered simple and ready to use by the consumer.