Redaccion
The Colecta Memoria project, promoted by the Cultural Heritage department of the City Council of La Laguna, in collaboration with the municipal Area of Citizen Participation, is focusing on one of the lesser-known cultural heritages of a municipality that boasts the only World Heritage City in the Canary Islands and more than 60 Cultural Interest Assets. In its first phase, it has visited 7 community centers to share with the neighbors a film repertoire that shows the evolution of the locality since 1926, an initiative with high participation that has allowed access to new historical and amateur material that has not been digitized.
All these resources will be presented to the public, along with the material analyzed and collected by the management team during months, on the occasion of the Heritage Night, the annual event of the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain, which will be celebrated on September 13. Furthermore, in an exercise that coincides with the 130th anniversary of the birth of cinema and the 25 years of La Laguna’s inclusion in the UNESCO list, reinforcing "an initiative that will significantly contribute to the conservation and dissemination of a legacy that documents our history since the early 20th century."
This is explained by the Councilor of Cultural Heritage, Adolfo Cordobés, who highlights that these sessions with the population have represented a new advance, by allowing access to private funds. "Recovering amateur film material is an essential task to preserve and disseminate our audiovisual heritage, resources that allow current and future generations to learn about their cultural heritage, better understand their past, and appreciate the evolution of their community over time," he points out.
The councilor recalls that "this type of material becomes a valuable educational and cultural resource, offering a unique and authentic vision of everyday life, customs, and historical events that have shaped the local identity, thus contributing to preserving collective memory and reflecting moments that do not usually appear in official records."
In this sense, the filmmaker and project director, Dailo Barco, explains that the project has achieved one of its main objectives, "to activate interest in the conservation of local audiovisual archives. In addition, we have obtained contacts from four people who preserve domestic or amateur film material that has not been digitized, opening up new possibilities to continue recovering and preserving images from the past."
"The digitization and preservation of these materials ensure that they are not lost due to physical deterioration, and by making them accessible to the public, a greater interest and appreciation for audiovisual heritage is fostered, encouraging its protection and dissemination," adds Barco, who highlights "the active participation of attendees in the two weeks of screenings, where they shared memories, comments, and personal experiences related to the places and moments portrayed on screen."
In fact, these participatory actions were attended by people of all ages: young, adults, elderly, and even families with babies, fostering intergenerational exchange and reinforcing the collective nature of memory. The projected images correspond to different dates between 1926 and 1976.
These sessions traveled, during the past month of June, through community centers in Tejina, Pérez Soto de El Cardonal, Bajamar, El Tranvía de La Cuesta, Valle de Guerra, Las Madres de Padre Anchieta, and Las Mercedes. All this work, along with the results of months of visiting public and private archives, will be reflected in "Heritage in Motion," the grand event on September 13 at the former convent of Santo Domingo, which will include screenings of digitized films and a video documenting all this citizen participation.
This municipal initiative has the collaboration of UNESCO, Canarian Film Archive, and Casa de Lava. Likewise, the Colecta Memoria team is composed of Dailo Barco, Racso Zehcnas, and Virginia Navarro.
International Recommendations
The project has taken into account UNESCO’s Recommendations on audiovisual heritage, both the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images, which emphasizes the importance of protecting these documents as an expression of the cultural personality of peoples, as well as the Preservation and Access to Documentary Heritage, which includes content in digital format.
