Manila, Ricky Dávila & Alberto García-Alix, 2005

Manila is a photobook that stares you down. On its cover, a young boxer — helmeted, defiant — embodies the raw intensity that defines this visual journey. Created by Spanish photographer Ricky Dávila and accompanied by the prose of Alberto García-Alix, this 2005 edition plunges into the urban soul of the Philippine capital with unflinching intimacy.

The book unfolds like a fight sequence: moments of stillness followed by abrupt punches of emotion. Dávila’s black-and-white portraits — gritty, tender, immediate — sketch a Manila of paradoxes, shaped by survival, masculinity, and fleeting grace. The inclusion of boxers, street kids, and religious icons channels both ethnographic attention and poetic immediacy, in the spirit of classic humanist documentary photography.

García-Alix’s text adds a voice to the images: introspective, dislocated, full of dark lyricism. Together, the visual and written narratives build a portrait of distance — geographical, emotional, existential — seen through the filter of an outsider who is anything but detached.

Published by Gran Sol Comunicación Visual, this book accompanied an exhibition curated by Alejandro Castellote and remains a compelling testament to the power of visual storytelling beyond borders.

• Object: Photobook
• Title: Manila, Photobook
• Authors: Ricky Dávila (photographs), Alberto García-Alix (text)
• Date: 2005
• Technique / Printing Method: Offset printing
• Medium / Materials: Paper, hardcover
• Publisher / Editor: Gran Sol Comunicación Visual S.L.
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN: 84-609-5412-9
• Pages: Not specified
• Dimensions: Not specified
• Condition: Excellent
• Provenance: Darwin Collection