The images in Retrat d’estudi were produced during a month-long residency in Girona for the Inundart Festival in 2025, in collaboration with the Arxiu Municipal de Girona.

The project engages with the city and its archival heritage within the cultural context of Catalonia, an autonomous community of Spain where history and community are central to cultural life. Here the construction of personal and collective memory has always been fundamental to identity, a crucial process for the survival of Catalan culture, particularly during the political repression of the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975).

Girona and its archive provide a case study for exploring how a community constructs and transmits its own image. By combining newly produced photographs of daily life with archival images, Retrat d’estudi opens a dialogue between past and present, institutional and informal narratives. In this exchange, the archive reveals not only what has been preserved but also what remains unspoken, while contemporary scenes gain weight through their encounter with history. The project reflects on the act of looking and the role of photography in shaping shared memory, proposing the archive as an active space where images continue to speak across time, revealing photography as an act of collective vision.

2025