During the third week of November (from 21 to 24) it was held a new edition of the Image and Research Conference, organized by the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) of the Girona City Council with the collaboration of the Association of Archivists of Catalonia and promoted by ICA. In that edition, around 150 people attended representing eighteen different countries. The Image and Research Conference held its fifteenth year, and after 28 years, it has become the one if the benchmark events in Europe for professionals involved in photography and audiovisual mainly in the field of archives, preservation, history and document management.

15es Jornades Imatge i Recerca al Palau de Congresso de Girona. Acte d’obertura de les jornades. D’esquerra a dreta, Joan Soler, president de l’Associació d’Arxivers – Gestors de Documents de Catalunya, Narcís Sastre, regidor de Paisatge i Hàbitat Urbà de l’Ajuntament de Girona, Elsa Ibar, directora general de Patrimoni Cultural de la Generalitat de Catalunya i Joan Boadas, director del Centre de Recerca i Difusió de la Imatge.

The Conference started on the 21st with a workshop devoted to photography conservation titled  “When the alarms fire, 5 critical aspects for conservation of photography”. The teacher was Fernando Osorio, a well-known conservator of photography of the international scene. Three days later, on the 24th, another workshop took place. In this case, it was devoted to the digitissation of color photography, by Bea Martínez, Chief of Studies at the Center for Image and Multimedia Technology (CITM) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).. 45 people attended the workshops.

On the 22nd and 23rd it took place the sessions for papers and presentations that make up the main event of the Conference in the Girona Conference Centre. To highlight the speakers we quote Frederik Temmermans, from Vrije Universiteit (Brussels) and Research Manager at IMEC (Interuniversity Microlectronics Center), who gave a talk about technology and methods for the integrity of digital images. Tomislav Ivanjko, assistant professor at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences (University of Zagreb), dedicated his talk to the gamification of photographic archives, as a way for users engagement.  Bea Martínez, the workshop teacher, made a theoretical approach to the digitisation of colour photography. Last, Joan Boadas, Director of CRDI – Girona City Council, explained how to manage a photographic archive and he focused in how to project it towards the future.

15es Jornades Imatge i Recerca. Taller “Quan es disparen les alarmes. 5 aspectes crítics per la conservació de la fotografia” a càrrec del conservador de fotografia Fernando Osorio.

The experiences session was mainly focused on institutions and companies in Latin America in order to better understand the reality of these countries and learn from their experience. Sergio Burgui, from Moreira Salles Institute in Brasil, Daniel Sosa, from Photography Center in Montevideo (Uruguai), and again Fermando Osorio, representing the company Televisa in Mexico, were the representatives of this territory. They made evident the important works that are going on in all these countries. Last, a completely different experience, by Alain Dubois, archivist of canton of Valais, who explained a pilot project at the regional television, using a speech recognition tool.

The program gives also special importance to the debate and participation. On the 23rd it took place a debate about how to engage new audiences in which people talked about the possibilities that the digital media offer to archives, the interactivity with users, the social media and mainly Instagram, the professional creativity, the use of technologies, etc. It was a dialogue between David Iglésias, from CRDI, and Irina González, Master’s in Business Innovation, who provided an innovative and creative point of view.

15es Jornades Imatge i Recerca al Palau de Congressos de Girona. Pausa.

In the section of Conservation, dedicated to the Ángel Fuentes Memorial, CRDI made a presentation of Ángel Fuentes Collection of daguerrotypes, ambrotypes and ferrotypes. It was acquired this year and is one of the most important collections in the country. The conservator of Photography, Josep Pérez, made an assessment of this collection. Fernando Osorio, a colleague of Angel Fuentes in Latin American, gave a more personal approach to this man.

Last, we should mention the session of 23rd afternoon dedicated to papers. 30 papers were presented, from 10 different countries. This makes evident the need to count on this kind of forums to share knowledge and experiences. Once again, the four-days meeting and workshops in Girona was for all of us a good opportunity to be in contact with colleagues with different backgrounds, but with a shared interest: the photographic and audiovisual heritage.

Link to the papers and the photographic reportage:

https://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_properes-ENG.php

Blog and Photos courtesy Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI). Girona City Council