20 years of EUROPEANS

On 14 April 2005, photographer Yamandú Roos wrote this diary-entry in Marseille:

The first day. I arrived. I’m breathing again. It feels like there is no breath in Amsterdam. Or maybe it is just me. Whatever.

The friend who had invited him to Marseille went to the banlieues on a daily basis to shoot pictures for his graduation project at an art academy. Yamandú followed in his footsteps that first day. He noted the Marseille street style of 2005: Nike shoes, Adidas football track suits and Looney Tunes socks — pants tucked into them. The passion for OIympique Marseille everywhere. He and his friend met some nice people and Yamandú shot a few pictures of his own. In his diary he noted:

Today I think I took my first steps into the Europeans. Trying to see and feel what to picture and what not to picture.

It was the start of a project. EUROPEANS: one continent, a little Peugeot 205 (nicknamed « The Eagle »), fifteen tours, twenty years, forty countries, 15.000 photographs in color and black-and-white negative, 65.000 kilometers — so far. A few of those photos have featured in past issues of the European Review of Books. They fit the magazine perfectly — it’s the visual answer to that assignment he gave himself in his diary: trying to see and feel what to picture and what not to picture.