FAMILY ALBUM, THE CULTURE OF MEMORY

Family album, the culture of memory

One of the most relevant qualities of photography is its dynamism. It can be art, document and journalism; it can be advertising image and fashion; it can be applied to science, medicine, forensic studies and many other human activities. Certainly, its use is infinite. But probably its most outstanding value in history, and the most human quality of the photographic act, is its capacity to enhance memory, whether individual or collective, private or public, local or universal. Álbum familiar, la cultura del recuerdo is a collective photographic exhibition that seeks to put into perspective precisely this outstanding photographic faculty, that of fostering memory.

The exhibition aims to represent the different ways in which an individual evokes memory, which in this particular case will take place through three main axes that are not exclusive, on the contrary, highly interrelated to each other: places (a territory), individuals (a family) and contexts (a nation). At the same time, the tour through the gallery is also divided into three different supports: walls, panels and suspended pieces, which will involve us in a dynamic visit to the selected works. The exhibited projects have been developed by photographers with different interests and ways of working, also contained in three sub-genres of photographic art: documentary, conceptualism and experimentation. The period of production is broad: it begins in 1990, with the series Deseos, temores y divanes by Roberto Huarcaya, and extends until 2017, with the work of the young photographer Sebastián González, entitled La memoria.

Dilated gazes, a common objective: to generate in the public a reflection on memory in relation to the different expressive strategies deployed in the gallery. Under the concept coined by the German professor Aleida Assman, that the form of memory cannot simply be repeated continuously, but must be constantly renewed, the exhibition can contribute to the renewal of memory and propose an updated perspective on recent history. Assman’s scientific work has made the term “cultural memory” a guiding concept in the cultural sciences*. On the basis of his studies, the cultural sector analyses and rethinks policy innovation in order to contribute in the future to the renewal of memory and its possibilities for new generations. Cinema, visual and performing arts, literature, urban monuments, historic buildings, festivals, even musical creation, are all preponderant means in the construction of memory in contemporary nations.

In Álbum familiar, la cultura del recuerdo we seek to give importance to photography as a catalyst of memory; therefore, a medium of great social possibilities, in which the spectator can see himself reflected as a social actor who does not forget and who recognises the past of the community to which he belongs. Walking through the room is an invitation to pause briefly, to think and reflect on our own individual position in society and in history.

Carlos Caamaño A.

* The culture of remembrance”, article published in DE Magazin Deutschland. Forum for politics, culture and economy, January 2015.