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Country Fictions: Photographs by Juan Aballe of people leaving the city for rural life

Photographer Juan Aballe has created this beautiful series entitled ‘Country Fictions’ following various travels to different rural areas and scarcely populated regions of the Iberian Peninsula.

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Via Creative Boom submission. All images courtesy of Juan Aballe

Via Creative Boom submission. All images courtesy of Juan Aballe

As a few close friends started to move to the country there, Aballe found himself confronted with the idea of leaving the city himself.

Describing the work, he explained: "We search for years, we imagine our future in better places where we could start over. We leave the city behind travelling for miles and miles, driven by hopes and dreams. Maybe there was once a countryside, a village with green and fertile meadows. Now we return to find only the remains of a disused scenery.

"We pursue a fiction, that of a peaceful rural life. We search for beauty in a landscape where we do not belong, where time seems to have stopped still. We live our own transition, our fragile utopia, trying to understand what we are doing here and who we are."

A ramshackle shelter made from wooden poles and fabric in a forested clearing, with a small stool outside its entrance
A man in a checked shirt and jeans sits with a woman in a blue patterned sweater leaning against him on a worn sofa in a sparse room
Person looking out from window of a rural caravan surrounded by climbing vines and overgrown vegetation, with watering can visible outside
A cylindrical metal grain silo with a curved white panel stands among olive trees in a red earth field under a cloudy sky
Woman holding a child stands beside an orange car in a barren rural field with bare trees in the background
White caravan with red roof and accents parked beneath bare trees in a rural setting, surrounded by scattered objects and vehicles
Person sleeping in an orange and blue sleeping bag on overgrown grass beside an abandoned industrial pipe
Man with tattooed arms sits at the steering wheel inside a converted van with patterned curtains and greenery visible through the window
Woman and child harvesting tomatoes in a polytunnel on a rural hillside farm
A person sits on a bed inside a red-painted caravan, looking out a window towards green countryside, wearing a green striped blanket around their shoulders
Red curtain draped across an open window framing a misty, forested mountainous landscape beyond
A person in an orange and black striped jumper stands beside a blazing bonfire surrounded by dried corn stalks against a weathered blue industrial building at dusk
Person wearing a cream crochet shawl stands with their back to the camera overlooking a forested valley in a rural mountainous landscape
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