Visuality, Memory and Citizenship: Archive and Activism in Catalan Photography

An examination of the ethics, poetics and politics of visual representation in a selection of photographers and artists from Catalonia: images of the Spanish Civil War by Agustí Centelles, snapshots of urban life by Joan Colom, the use of photography as memorial or critical tool by Francesc Torres and Joan Fontcuberta¿s creative and theoretical contributions to post-photography in the digital age, among others. The wide range of practices discussed encompass documentary photography, photojournalism and the relation between photography and contemporary art. These Catalan photographers and artists will be studied in an international context, in connection with the work of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Gilles Peress, Gervasio Sánchez, Susan Meiselas, Marcelo Brodsky, Sophie Ristelhueber, Alfredo Jaar, Gustavo Germano and Martin Parr. The main focus will be on how photography serves both as a repository of memory and as an instrument of political intervention.

Antonio Monegal is professor of literary theory and comparative literature at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona since 1994. He currently directs the Institute of Culture at UPF and coordinates the research group on Comparative Literature. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1989, taught at Cornell University until his return to Spain, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Princeton and the University of Chicago. Among other publications, he is the author of Luis Buñuel de la literatura al cine (Anthropos, 1993) and En los límites de la diferencia: Poesía e imagen en las vanguardias hispánicas (Tecnos, 1998). He edited Literatura y pintura (Arco Libros, 2000), En Guerra (CCCB, 2004), Política y (po)ética de las imágenes de guerra (Paidós, 2007), and García Lorca’s Viaje a la luna (Pre-Textos, 1994) and El público y El sueño de la vida (Alianza, 2000). His research focuses on the politics of culture and on the representation of wars in literature and the visual arts. In 2004 he co-curated with Francesc Torres and José María Ridao an exhibition titled “At War” at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. Between 2009 and 2013, he was the vice-president of the Arts Council of Barcelona and presided over its Executive Committee.