INSPIRATION History in pictures

"Memory is the inner preservation of the past,

but it is also the only thing that sheds some light on the present

and some sense of the possible futures".

The yellow tram. Joan F. Look

How many images come back with the burst of a grape seed in the mouth, with the smell of a perfume, with the sound of a melody or with the rub of a finger on the skin? How many memories do those images evoke that, stuck in the retina, bring us back to places and moments? How many images have we forgotten as a result of selective memory? How many would we need to speak from memory? How much memory does our hard drive need in order not to forget the memory?

If images are a switch that activates experiences, recovers forgotten memories and are the tool that promotes the historical discourse that is part of individual and collective memory, it is necessary to encourage and spread the work of the facilities that look after the photographic heritage and audiovisual

INSPAI, Center for the Image of the Diputació de Girona, is this public service (so necessary) that is characterized by being one of the few facilities in the regions of Girona dedicated specifically to the collection, treatment, conservation, dissemination, creation and promotion of the photographic and audiovisual image.

The great value of INSPAI is the work it carries out in the field of heritage with the acquisition, treatment, conservation and dissemination of photographic funds, and the bet that the equipment has made in the field of promotion related to the creation, formation and dissemination of the contemporary image.

Heritage conservation

Although INSPAI manages more than one and a half million images, there are currently more than 192,000 available on the web that can be searched by subject, geographic or chronological scope.

The center has a technical advisory service that supports the town councils of the Girona municipalities and other cultural centers and facilities in the management of their image funds; of a dissemination and communication service that, on the one hand, supports photographers to develop their projects and, on the other, disseminates the activities and tasks carried out by the Image Center; of a consultation and loan service that allows you to consult the funds and the photographic and audiovisual collections of the center; of the Image Archive Service Emili Massanas i Burcet, which collects the still and moving image documentary heritage of the Girona regions and carries out its archival treatment, preservation and conservation; of a reproduction and digital processing service that is responsible for conserving and disseminating the images from the center's funds and collections; of a library and newspaper library specialized in the world of images, in heritage, artistic or documentary photography, in photographic techniques and in photography centers, where you can consult exhibition catalogs and documents on the visual arts and management cultural, and a training service that organizes cycles of courses, conferences, workshops and technical days with the aim of training on photographic and artistic techniques, legal aspects and aspects related to the preservation and conservation of images .

Millán Miquel. Exposició Coexistir de Pau de la Calle, guanyador del premi Joves fotògraf(e)s de Catalunya XXI (2023), a la Casa de Cultura de Girona, 2023. Font: INSPAI. Diputació de Girona.

Contemporary looks

One of the distinguishing features of INSPAI is that it opts for a contemporary look with the Young Photographers Program of the Girona Regions, with the aim of promoting artistic and documentary photography, supporting creation, stimulating photographers to develop projects and promote the work of audiovisual creators.

The program succeeds in creating a meeting space for the work of different photographers, encouraging photographic creation and bringing photography closer to the general public from all sides so that they can enjoy the trends in current photographic production. For the authors, it wants to be a tool for the promotion and projection of photography professionals and, in particular, of new young talents at the local, national and international level. For the municipalities, it wants to be a support to the town councils with a cultural offer that promotes a traveling exhibition and the corresponding catalog, and enters the Diputació de Girona the work of young photographers to increase the photographic fund of INSPAI. The exhibition and the catalog are presented at different festivals in the regions of Girona and cross borders making themselves visible at the VISA OFF in Perpignan.

Set de digitalització del Centre de la Imatge. Font: INSPAI. Diputació de Girona

INSPAI in 2024

INSPAI has programmed an extensive agenda of activities for 2024, among which stands out the Photographers exhibition, which offers a compilation of the creations of 23 photographers affiliated with the UPIFC Image Union; the call for the 22nd edition of the Young Photographers of Catalonia Award; the publication of the eleventh volume of the Quaderns de Fotografia collection of the photographic collection donated by the photojournalist Marçal Molas i Vidal; photography exhibitions VISA pour l'IMAGE in collaboration with the Center International du Photojournalisme de Perpignan (CIP) and the House of Culture; the third edition of the triangular Cycle, in which it is proposed to reflect on documentary photography and photojournalism; in October the winning project of the XXII Premi Joves Fotograf(e)s de Catalunya will be presented with an exhibition and the publication of a catalogue; the exhibition and conference of heliogravures by Carles Mitjà, and the traveling throughout 2024 of the exhibitions of the Young Photographers Award: Pau de la Calle, with Coexistir, and Anna Lofi, with Paredadors i pedrers, in danger of extinction Menorca, dry stone landscape, a cultural heritage.

The value of the image

INSPAI recovers memory at a time when digitization plays a key role in the preservation and dissemination of images, but studies show that, paradoxically, the digital image is subject to a significant danger of loss if the special needs of conservation and preservation that it requires so that the image as a source of information can be recovered in the future. At a time when everything is in the cloud, we need to make sure that it doesn't steal our memory.