"El tot i les parts", "Los irrepressibles", "La Liga de la novia" and "Costa Esbravada" at the Mercè Cultural Center in Girona

As described by Jacques Lacan in his theory of "The stage of the mirror", the temporary exhibition The Whole and the Parts by Alexander Yancee and María Nieto is a reflection on the idea of how the "construction" of one's own body depends of the gaze of the other. Because one can only see oneself through a mirror, and without it, one can only discover oneself through looking at parts of one's own body. This installation can be visited until May 5, 2023.

The irrepressibles by George Ramos
Another exhibition that can be visited from March 27 this year is that of Los irrepressibles by George Ramos. This exhibition is a documentary project that tells the story of men from different countries who have left behind feelings of guilt or shame associated with sexual impulses repressed by attitudes and comments made by their mothers when talking about their sexual orientation. The author's aim is to raise awareness, generate discomfort and concern by showing in images the effect caused by these comments made from hatred and rejection that even motivate the non-acceptance of the same body and prevent sexual freedom itself.

It should be noted that George Ramos' photographic and audiovisual projects are based on personal experiences and deal with topics such as sexuality, gender, diversity and inequalities. The body appears as the place where the marks of abuse, deprivation of freedom, traces of aggression and repression are reflected. The lack of physical and mental acceptance arises from the process of defining identity and sexual orientation, topics that he approaches from a documentary perspective. The artist gets involved, tells his personal story, but also looks for other voices based on a research work that includes interviews, surveys and visits to different spaces. It is also worth noting the photography exhibition by Roberto Hernández Yustos, La liga de la novia, which exhibits images that belong to an archive made up of more than seven thousand negatives of weddings carried out in Lowa during the nineties (it belongs to a col· private lesson).

The Mirades Festival, a biannual photography contest, will show in the La Mercè cloister the winning photographs of the public call for proposals opened last autumn. Through this initiative, the festival aims to spread and exhibit the work of emerging artists and give the opportunity to several photographers to exhibit their creations. These two photography exhibitions can be visited for free until the 28th of this month.

Costa Esbravada, photographs by Miquel Riera

The arrival of mass tourism on the Costa Brava, from the fifties of the last century, at the height of the Franco dictatorship, led, from the beginning, to the destruction of numerous coastal areas, some of them virgin until then, with urbanizations and constructions of all kinds. It is, however, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, when promoters and speculators built large buildings, villas and urbanized mountains and many areas along the beaches. The landscape of the Costa Brava is transformed forever, often with buildings of poor quality, bad taste and excessive volumes that, unfortunately, have reached our days. From the 1980s, with the advent of democratic councils, this rampant urbanism was only partially controlled. Thus, in many municipalities, with the complicity of the councils themselves, the urbanization of large areas of the coast has continued until today. It is with the idea of capturing this excessive urbanism that Miquel Riera has developed the Costa Esbravada project. According to Riera "Devastated in the sense that much of the scenic appeal of our coastline has been consumed, which, despite everything, still treasures much of its original beauty. Let's not let it be lost."

Coinciding with this exhibition, on April 18 there will be a screening of the documentary entitled "The limits of the Costa Brava", by Antoni Martí, which is a serious and forceful reflection on where this territory, so admiring and abused at the same time. Made twenty years ago, it has important witnesses, now gone, such as the geographer Yvette Barbaza or the journalist Narcís-Jordi Aragó.