Exposición: Madagascar 1906

This exhibition of photographs, which Casa África shall host from 2nd October to 30th December 2015, collects images that illustrate the customs of Madagascar's inhabitants from the beginning of the 20th century. They are captured by the camera of a sensitive and tenacious anonymous photographer of wealthy who, thanks to his adventurous spirit and his desire to immortalise the culture and habits of the natives with whom he lived, has contributed to the dissemination of this legacy of unquestionable value to historians and anthropologists, as well as extraordinary and subtle beauty for those who simply wish to contemplate this exceptional work of art.

The project in question came to light after a careful recovery process that took more than two years. This graphic document was acquired in 2010 from a bookseller-antiquarian of Granada. This bibliophile revealed that he bought it from another antiquarian and that, in turn, it came from a college professor who belonged to a high-ranking family from Granada who were of French descent.

This exhibition is an initiative of Zero Memory Archive, at the head of which are the directors Tarek Ode and David Olivera, protagonists of the discovery of precious photographic archives in a very bad state of conservation who set to work to avoid that they completely disappear. This is not an association dedicated to the conservation and restoration of graphic heritage, although it is an important part of its mission, although its main contribution is the recovery of those forgotten files in order to update and share them, aware of the high heritage, ethnographic, historical and cultural value that they have, without forgetting their artistic and documentary value.

With this exhibition, they also put value on an argument that is rarely defended in the history of photography: the contribution of women, and more specifically that of women travellers and adventurers who, way ahead of their own time, captured in photographs the furthest corners of the planet which in the mid-nineteenth century were yet to be discovered. Women whose bravery and courage was never recognised.

In short, the Madagascar 1906 photographic archive, apart from being an important source for researchers, it is an open window to the past that helps us to understand better how the peoples of two diametrically opposed cultures related to each other, as well as immersing ourselves in the Madagascar of more than a hundred years ago thanks to its nature, buildings and inhabitants that "speak" to us of an ancestral culture that every curious person should know about.

This exhibition of restored photographs may be visited in  Casa Africa's exhibition halls from 2nd October to 30th December 2015 during the following opening times: Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.. Closed Saturdays and Sundays and on: 12th October; 2nd November; 8th, 24th and 25th December.

See Hall fact sheet