On looking up the places he’d glimpsed he found that they—much like his hometown—were almost photographically nonexistent, beyond a few bland images of the main plazas or churches. “I wanted to create a photographic guide to these small places that have no visual memory or representation. People see these places from the window, but they don’t really see them, they don’t know them.” 

Manssur wanted to explore the “concept of the non-place, towns or cities that seem to exist only as satellites to others, to show that these places, which most of the time don’t matter, which almost don’t exist, can be places of interest too…” This was far from a novel motivation for Manssur, who felt similarly motivated by his photos of his hometown. As well as wanting to fill a void in the photographic lexicon, he wanted to challenge preconceptions. “People complain about Guayaquil. They say it’s ugly, unphotographable, dangerous…I wanted to give value to it. You only have to pay attention to see it.”