Like an optical illusion, a memory can also be manipulated or distorted: by your own brain, but in some cases also by external factors. An example is the Spanish amnesty law of 1977, which introduced the Pact of Forgetting. After the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the government took the decision to officially forget the 40-year dictatorship. Legally, that meant crimes under Franco's dictatorship were not prosecuted. In public spaces, it meant that visible remnants of these crimes were obscured. Thus the Spanish collective memory before the Pact was fragmented, distorted and blurred.

This history forms the starting point for Bebe Blanco Agterberg's (Netherlands, 1995) images where a visual tension is felt that Agterberg manages to capture in an almost surreal and sometimes apocalyptic way.