Large black and beige mural of a snake winding across a building's corner and side walls, its body filled with silhouetted human and animal figures, painted at a street intersection with a traffic light and pedestrian crossing sign.

La caverna The Cave

Year: 2025
Location: La Línea de la Concepción, Cádiz, Spain

Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
Plato, The Republic, Book VII

Closer view of the coiled snake mural on a yellow wall, its looping body packed with black silhouettes of people and animals, a tree and litter bin in front.

Detail of the snake's body showing a black silhouetted bull-headed minotaur figure, a chained kneeling figure, and other intertwined human silhouettes against the yellow wall.

Detail of the snake mural's coiled body filled with black silhouettes of a running cat, a mythological centaur-like figure pouring a jug, and a reclining figure, white splash shapes accenting the yellow background.

Side view of a looping section of the snake mural on a yellow wall, silhouettes throwing and holding a ball among the coils, a green utility box below.

Detail of the snake mural's curving band packed with chained figures, a bird in flight, small child silhouettes, and white teardrop shapes.

Close view of two coiled loops of the snake mural, densely filled with black silhouettes of people, a dolphin, a bird, and a monkey against the yellow wall.

Wide view of two large coiled loops of the snake mural wrapping around a tree trunk, filled with black silhouettes of people and animals on the yellow building wall, a litter bin beside it.

Corner view of the snake mural's coiled body filled with silhouetted figures climbing and playing, a pedestrian crossing and speed bump warning sign on a pole in front.

Wide view of the snake's open-mouthed head, its body filled with silhouettes including a child playing trumpet and an elderly figure with a cane, an elderly man on a mobility scooter with a dog passing in front, a green and red heart graffiti with "meh!" nearby.

What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? On hearing that, Oedipus found the solution, declaring that the riddle of the Sphinx referred to man; for as a babe he is four-footed, going on four limbs, as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old man he gets besides a third support in a staff.
Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.5.8

Detail inside the snake's head showing silhouettes of an elderly bent figure with a walking stick, a standing figure, and a crawling baby, evoking an evolution-of-man motif.

Wide view of the snake's head and neck on the yellow wall, an elderly man in a white hat walking past, a separate small walking silhouette figure to the left, red and green heart graffiti with "meh!" text.