How do we see ‘the other’, those we recognise as different from ourselves? A good way to find out is to consult ethnographic photography archives. The arrival of photography transformed the study of race, since these images were accepted as a faithful reflection of reality, and therefore as scientific proof. But there are many ways of taking a photograph; you can place the subjects in particular poses, look down on them from above to make them seem smaller than they really are, or get them to adopt postures that do no more than reinforce our own original prejudices. Laida Azkona Goñi and Txalo Toloza-Fernández have spent years exploring the phenomenon of colonialism, the traces it has left behind and that it continues to leave in the present day through a series of documentaries. They do so once again in an installation that takes as its starting point the unpublished images of the first expeditions to Equatorial Guinea led by August Panella, who was the director of the Ethnological and Colonial Museum of Barcelona, and ethnologist Jordi Sabater Pi, who found Snowflake, the world’s only known albino gorilla, and brought him to Barcelona. It is a solemn reminder of Barcelona's past as a colonial metropolis, a reality that is frequently forgotten.
In this living arts experience, you'll listen to a podcast which includes reports from members of the expedition, fragments of letters, sounds, and a thousand stories that will take you back to the former Spanish colonies in Guinea. While you’re at home, in your own living room. Or in a park. Or at the library. Wherever you feel most comfortable and as many times as you wish.
Because, this time, La col·lecció leaves behind the format of its first performance (Grec 2019) to turn into a documentary toolbox that the spectators themselves are in charge of opening. Abandoning the passive role usually reserved for the audience in more conventional theatre, the spectator becomes one more researcher. History has always been narrated to us as a series of momentous isolated events, but now it’s up to the spectator to take a pencil and paper and draw the lines that link together the different pieces of the puzzle.
A coproduction from Grec 2021 Festival de Barcelona & AzkonaToloza.
With the support from Programa Creació i Museus, La Caldera-centre de creació, CRL - Central Eléctric (Oporto) and Iberescena.
BOOKING FROM JUNE 14
Direction, creation and research: Laida Azkona Goñi, Txalo Toloza-Fernández Sound design: Rodrigo Rammsy In collaboration with, and voices: Sofia Coffi, Oscar Dasí, Alicia Eho, Susana Marilo, Toni Mira, Resurrección Rôpe, Judith Raso , Jessica Sala, Hasan G. López, José Luis Nvumba, Tania Adam, Silvia Albert Sopale, Josep Oriol Pascual Texts: Isabel Mikue, Oihana Altube, Laida Azkona, Txalo Toloza-Fernández Performers: Tamara Ndong, Ricard Boyle Audiovisual design: MiPrimerDrop Design: Sarah Renau Calligraphy & assistance: Marta Crespo Photography: Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del món archive, Tristán Pérez-Martín General production: Helena Febrés Fraylich In collaboration with: Agus Pérez, Pablo González, Espai nyamnyam, Museo Etnològic i de Cultures del Món- Parc de Montjuïc employees, Asociación Guineocatalana Virgen de Bisila
