Son[i]a #58
Jordana Mendelson
The seminar entitled The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia (March, 7 and 8 2008) approaches the pluralistic debate surrounding the polemical notion of the document, analysing the evolution of this hybridised genre in relation to the specific conditions of concrete cases throughout the 20th century and demonstrating the inoperability of general theories when attempting to treat the documentary genre.
Issues such as the introduction of the image into public space, the epistemological statute of the image, the ethical and political problems attached to the document and its relationship to the archive and the library all articulate a seminar that ties in to the exhibition The Universal Archive (MACBA, Autumn 2008), in addition to continuing a debate already initiated in the seminar The Metropolis in the Photographic Era (February 2007).
Son[i]a speaks with Jordana Mendelson, participant in the seminar and professor of the Independent Study Programme (PEI) in the course entitled Modern (Photographic) Documents.
Filiep Tacq
Interview with Filiep Tacq, designer of the catalogue Public Photographic Spaces. Propaganda Exhibitions from Pressa to The Family of Man, 1928-55.
Jorge Ribalta and Bartomeu Marí speak about the exhibition "Universal Archive. The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia".
Manolo Laguillo
Manolo Laguillo is a photographer, essayist and professor of photography in the Fine Arts Faculty, Universitat de Barcelona. His stark, deserted urban representations illustrate processes of change in the contemporary metropolis. In FONS AUDIO #37 Manolo Laguillo talks about his methods of working with large format cameras, about his walks in the city outskirts, about puddles, asphalt and ruins, about the qualities of colour and black and white, the sensuality of prints on paper, and the links between music and photography.
Sandra Balsells
Sandra Balsells has spent more than twenty years using her camera to document and denounce the impact that military, natural and social catastrophes have on people. She practices a humanist, combative, poetic photojournalism that lays bare the conflicts of our time, offering us images with which to construct critical discourses and organise our visual memory.
Manuel J. Borja-Villel about the PEI
Interview with Manuel J. Borja-Villel about the Programme of Independent Studies (Programa d'Estudis Independents, PEI).