The first, Memorias desde la andana: mujeres, álbumes y patrimonios olvidados, is inaugurated on Friday, 19 September, at 1:00 pm, in the Manuela Ballester Room of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The second, Las escrituras del agua. Una mirada social de la dana 29-10-2024, will open their doors on Tuesday, 23 September, at 7:00 pm, in the hall of the Social Sciences Library, Gregori Maians.

Women as guardians of memory

Memorias desde la andana: mujeres, álbumes y patrimonios olvidados gives homage to women as main guardians of the family patrimony, care and transmission of memories that conform the collective memory. The sample is curated by the interdisciplinary team promoted from the Social Anthropology Field of the UV and integrated by Teresa Vicente, Alejandra Nieto, Ángela Calero, Miquel A. Ruiz, Pablo Santamarina, Ángela Aroca and Beatriz Santamarina. This exhibition came from the project Etnografía de emergencia. Memorias, narrativas, prácticas y estrategias ante la dana de Valencia’, co-leaded by Beatriz Santamarina, full-time university professor in Social Anthropology UV, and Teresa Vicente, also professor of the UV, from which they took testimonies, interviews and pictures in the affected sceneries by the Dana for 10 months. The project has been recently distinguished with a R+D by Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and will continue during the next three years (B.Santamarina/A.Moncusí).

The exhibition is structured in two sections. The first, Custodias de la memoria, makes visible the role of women in the preservation of photography, letters and personal documents, true “treasures” that link generations. The second, Salvaguardando el patrimonio colectivo, is centred in the rescue work after the DANA, mostly leaded by volunteer women and techniques from laboratories of the UV #Salvemlesfotografies in different districts (Torrent, Algemesí, Utiel, Burjassot, Alfafar, Alaquàs and the municipal drying room of El Saler). The exhibition is an ethnographic project that combines images and pieces of interviews, and it will be able to visited for free until 31 October.

The writings on water: a critical look to the territory

The exhibition Las escrituras del agua. Una mirada social de la dana 29-10-2024, curated by the full time professor of the UV Antonio Ariño, reunites around 80 photographs by José Luis Cueto Lominchar, Mario Rabasco and Ana María Martínez Gorostiza. Under the popular metaphor “las escrituras del agua”, the sample suggests a debate about the occupation of territory, the development models and the impact of climate change.

With an almost forensic focus, the team, sometimes along engineers, has gone through riverbeds and affected localities to document the devastation of harvests, housings and infrastructures, as well as the contamination prints that have stayed in the landscape.

The exhibition, that will be able to be visited until 10 November, warns about the urgent necessity of a change in the paradigm in the management of territory and the prevention of risks. With this sample a new cultural programme space is also being inaugurated and open to the university community and society in the hall of the Social Sciences Library, Gregori Maians. This exhibition is inside the framework of the project Paraula Viva, a human library that will give a voice to the testimonies and memories and that will have their first edition in autumn, 2025, dedicated to the DANA.