Monday, May 5, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. – At the Pati Llimona, c/ de Regomir, 3, Barcelona-08002 (free admission)

Next Monday, May 5, Montserrat Baldomà, photographer and archivist, will explain to us the funds and collections that the Historical Archive of the Barcelona Provincial Council where she works has, the management of photographs in the archive of a public institution and also the projects and dissemination channels that they have undertaken to disseminate them.

It is well known that photography has an extraordinary versatility to fit into different areas of knowledge, communication, art or memory. But when photography reaches the archival apparatus, it by default attains the status of a document, adding a new dimension to the debate about its nature and functions.

The identification of this debate is fundamental at a time when photography has achieved a solid enough position in the archive to rethink the way in which it inhabits it. It is with this perspective that the General Archive of the Diputació de Barcelona (AGDB) works to conserve, manage and disseminate its image collections, which have increased significantly in recent years. It is time to make some rethinking to improve the value of this heritage, considering the role that the archive plays in the transmission of documents.

In this photo talk we want to present how we do it, how we organize ourselves, and which are the most significant collections and collections that are preserved. How are aspects related to the discursive displacement produced by the transition from photography to the archive treated, or the implementation of the Transversal Gender Plan, a pioneering initiative developed by the AGDB itself aimed at minimizing intersectional bias in the treatment of documentation.

The AGDB safeguards the photographs from the corporation’s Protocol collections, as well as collections that are historically its own such as those of the Casa de Caritat and the Casa de Maternitat, the Institute of Culture and the Popular Library for Women, collections from schools that have depended on the Barcelona Provincial Council such as the Escola Superior d’Agricultura or the Escola d’Enginyera, the collection of the Monumental Catalogue of the Service for Cataloguing and Conservation of Monuments and other personal collections such as those of Narcís Ricart, Frederic Juandó Alegret, Antoni Gallardo i Garriga, Lola Anglada, or the collection of the “Catalunya 1934” photography competition of the newspaper Día Gráfico, among others.

We look forward to seeing you at Pati Llimona!