Here's a little preview:
It has been speculated that if New York City’s Central Park were to vanish, the city would quickly wither and die. Like any good city park, it is the heart of the city and a critical salve for urban life. One of Europe’s largest public parks, Madrid’s Casa de Campo occupies an enormous stretch of land to the west of the city. A former royal hunting estate, the land was first opened to the public during Spain’s Second Republic in 1931. Closed to traffic, the vast woodlands and fields offer a welcome respite from urban life, the pervasive concrete, and crowds. Yet despite being carefully zoned and managed, parks are never fully controlled. They all contain unruly pockets and spaces free from municipal oversight. In Casa De Campo, Antonio Xoubanova has strayed far from the manicured and sanctioned spaces of the park to explore its interior and the spaces that have given way to more personal and private rituals. Divided into five unpaginated sections, exploring “love, death, fleeting moments, symbols and a lack of direction,” Casa De Campo offers an affecting and idiosyncratic portrait of the secret life of a park.
You can read the rest of the review, which is entitled Park Life, in the issue, along with some other great pieces. Get a copy of the book here.
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