Living with the Rock explores places where urbanisation does not replace the landscapebut is forced to negotiate with it.

Photographed across Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Tehran, Cairo and Los Monegros in Spain, the series observes buildings, infrastructures and settlementsappearing within landscapes dominated by exposed geology. Mountains become walls, boundaries and urban edges; architecture occupies their gaps, follows their contours orstands against them.

Rather than treating rock as a backdrop, the photographs consider it as an active part ofthe built environment. Across these distant territories, similar relationships emerge between geological time and the comparatively fragile structures of human occupation.

© Manuel Álvarez Diestro (MAD)