Spain is a country that has been immersed in an economic crisis for too many years. As a result, countless people have relocated to other countries in search of better job opportunities, moving away from their families, often reuniting only around the Christmas holiday.

Each year, Madrid’s airport receives thousands of Spanish passengers who find themselves in these (and similar) situations. We witness the year’s most emotional embraces, as families and friends finally reunite to spend some long-awaited time together.

The emotion at the arrivals gate is palpable even before landing; the glances of the waiting family and friends reveal the excitement and mixed emotions of this long-awaited moment.

We created the world’s largest greeting card, enabling family members to send messages from the ground that were visible from planes about to land. For the very first time, the size of the words matched the emotion they contained.

We built an installation 4 km from the Madrid airport on an area spanning 24,000 m2 (6 football fields, the world’s largest outdoor display): 2,600 50x50 cm LED devices, interconnected and configured to function as a huge video screen visible from up to 1,000 metres high, with an anti-glare system. The installation was synchronised with air traffic according to flight number, and the messages rotated east or west depending on which of the two runways the flight approached. A human team monitored the process during the month of the campaign from a booth in coordination with the control tower.