N.13

Road trip photography was never considered quite as a genre until David Campany made a survey of photographic road trips from 1906 to the present, gathering all the photographers and artists that contributed to a movement especially known within the United States cross-state routes and its car invention history: “The Open Road”, Aperture, 2014.

What is the concept of a road trip? From point A to B, there isn’t a specific concept on how long and how far a road trip is, but instead the intention of driving for recreational purposes of sightseeing, visiting acquaintances, going on vacation, and many others.

N.13/EN13 is a Portuguese national road that extends from Porto city peripherals to the farther border of Portugal’s northern shore, Valença, joining the Douro and Minho and also Portugal and Spain as one, in a long line of 121km. This route started as a routine of revisiting personal acquaintances and places, and it suddenly became a journey of visual memories and moments that could describe this personal experience. What was at first an experiment, later became a series of visual poetry, joy and contemplative rides, self-rediscovery, and the comprehension of things that could represent this long-distance journey: its emotions, the self, its myth of space, and its sense of possibilities.