For a National Center for Photography and Image

It was a well-deserved farewell upon retirement for Pepe Font de Mora, who for more than twenty-three years was the director of the Foto Colectania Foundation, one of the most prestigious private photographic institutions in the country—with a public mission—founded and chaired, since 2002, by Mario Rotllant. In addition to the exhibitions on display at its headquarters on Passeig Picasso in Barcelona, ​​Foto Colectania boasts a remarkable collection: some 3,500 images by more than 80 Spanish and Portuguese photographers.

The other reason for inviting more than thirty photographers, critics, friends, and collaborators was the presentation of Foto Colectania's new young director, chosen through a competitive process: Elisa Medde (Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy, 1981), an art historian specializing in visual culture and photographic practices.

In July, the Catalan government's Department of Culture announced the acquisition of one of the most important and unique private collections of Catalan, Spanish, and international photography in the country: the Chantal Grande and David Balsells collection, from the holdings of the Forvm Gallery in Tarragona, undoubtedly the most influential and outstanding. It comprises more than 1,500 original images by over 150 photographers. The Forvm Gallery collection is now part of the National Photography Collection and will be housed in the Tarragona Museum of Modern Art, which is part of the Tarragona Provincial Council. A good selection of this exceptional collection will be on display in Tarragona by the end of next year.

Photography festivals are thriving and well-attended throughout the region: Scan, in Tarragona; Panoramic, in Granollers; Revelate, in Vilassar de Dalt; Lumínico in Sant Cugat, the Incadaqués Photo Festival, and the Xavier Miserachs Biennial in Palafrugell, among many others. In Torroella de Montgrí, you can visit the Vila Casas Foundation's Museum of Contemporary Photography at the Palau Solterra.

Certainly, Barcelona is experiencing an unprecedented boom in photography and is well-positioned to become a true photography capital of Southern Europe. The city boasts numerous institutions dedicated to the field: the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), the Barcelona Photographic Archive, the KBr Center of the Mapfre Foundation, Virreina, the Image Center, and Photographic Social Vision, all of which have distinguished themselves through their ambitious commitment to heritage, art, creativity, and education, as well as their international outreach. However, despite this abundance of institutions, there is no single place where one can properly view a comprehensive overview of the history of Catalan photography. Paradoxically, anyone seeking a truly excellent selection should visit the exemplary Toni Catany International Photography Center in Llucmajor, Mallorca, which houses a vast collection of images by Catany and other photographers.

"We are living through a time of profound mutation in images. Photographs, traditionally conceived as witnesses to reality, have become increasingly ambiguous artifacts. The arrival of artificial intelligence has accelerated this transformation and accentuated the crisis of the very notion of visual truth," Joan Fontcuberta tells Lessons in ThingsWhoever controls images and language controls information and power.

In recent years, the National Photography Collection has grown exponentially. The MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) holds a collection of over 70,000 images that is hardly known. When the Government of Catalonia approved the National Photography Plan in 2014, the National Archives of Catalonia and other Catalan archives already held more than 35 million images that form part of the public heritage.

In 2026, France will celebrate, with all due honors, the bicentenary of the invention of photography. In 2014, the Catalan government approved the creation of the National Center for Photography and Image. Its creation is more necessary than ever, given the increasingly crucial importance of images in our post-industrial digital societies. A 21st-century center, networked rather than centralized, that consolidates and supports the sector and the various institutions involved, coordinating, promoting, supporting, co-producing, and showcasing Catalan photography and the numerous and diverse initiatives surrounding photography and image, both locally and internationally.