Yesterday the scandal jumped in the networks. They had found part of the photographic archive of the Cambio 16 magazine in a work container on Calle Menorca 3, very close to the El Retiro park, a recent World Heritage Site. Many things are taken care of, but the graphic memory of a country seems to have been irretrievably lost.
‘Cambio 16’ (now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding) was one of the most important magazines of the Transition. It was born with the idea of fighting against the ideas of the Franco dictatorship and proposing a change (hence part of the name). 16 people made up the original team (the other part).
In your magazine they have published thousands of photographs of all the important characters and events from the death of the dictator to the present. Many of us who lived through the 80s remember the head of the magazine and the photos on the cover at our parents’ house.
All the historical figures of the political parties, intellectuals, artists … went through the cover in photographs, except for some illustrated numbers. Photography, as was the case with the great magazines of the time, was a fundamental basis.
Yesterday part of the story of our life disappeared. Paco Gómez, one of the most interesting current photographers and author of some of the most recommended books of recent years, has told us that part of the archive has really been lost.
This was the first USB memory in history
The history of the loss of the Cambio 16 photographic archive
As he has told us in a telephone conversation, is calling your attention as some media are taking iron out of the matter. They say that nothing has been lost, or that only a few plates have disappeared.
But his sources assure him that the already damned construction container located on Calle Menorca 3 had several boxes and plates full of photographs perfectly cataloged and documented with the ‘Cambio 16’ logo.
Also, in the Facebook forum ‘PHOTO FORO. Professional Photography in Spain ‘, also photographer Ángel López Soto comments in great detail what he saw and lived with his own eyes:
Yesterday at 5:15 p.m., the photographers César Dezfuli and Ángel López Soto met at the CAMBIO 16 headquarters (Menorca, 3) as a result of the information received about the magazine’s photographic archive that was being thrown into a garbage container. Cesar had been talking to the workers in charge of the debris in the morning, the container was already full and the photos underneath. He put down his phone to be called in case more pictures were taken. In the afternoon one of the workers told us that the container had been removed by the Suyfer SL company at around 1 pm. We called by phone and they told us that it had been taken to the Valdemingómez landfill. We call. No one answers the phone so we decided to go there. The office was closed. We spoke with the security manager – team leader, I think it was his position – who told us that if half an hour had elapsed since arrival, the photos could still be located, but after so many hours there were no longer any possibilities. As soon as the trucks arrive, the content is unloaded, compacted and transported again, this time to a more remote area that is difficult to pinpoint. By then the photos would be smashed. We asked permission to see the place, but it was denied.
The saddest thing of all is that some newspapers are making the disaster down. AND some digital media limit themselves to transcribing what they comment on ‘El País’ or ‘El Mundo’.
It is very sad to read the testimonies of those who went through the container trying to save the dumped material. It is not clear how much has been lost this time.
The misfortune of losing a historical archive
It seems that everything has been due to a tremendous error. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility. Some workers began to throw boxes and plates of slides to a container of work of a community of neighbors in which they were working. How did these boxes get to you? Nobody knows it for sure.
That if they were at the door to digitize, that if the workers saw them and believed that they were part of their work … All very strange. As Kike Para writes:
He sent me my newspaper quickly as soon as he found out and, under the rubble, I have managed to rescue four plates of slides by Gilberto Villamil, Antonio and Luis Rubio, Mariano Casado, Alberto Valls ….. all from my promotion in photojournalism … what pain when putting your hand between the rubble …
It does not seem that only an iron or two have been lost as the newspapers claim … It is difficult to say for sure because, if it is a mistake, it can cost someone their job. But you can’t have boxes full of slides out of everyone’s reach. It is inexplicable (if the justification that circulates is really true).
In Spain photography is not valued at all. And history is despised and tries to hide many times. The image does not count in the ministries or in the offices of the powerful.
If a Photography Center existed in Spain, this archive could have been kept, or its owners could have asked how to keep it. Or if they didn’t have space, he could have saved it for the historical value it has.
But we are one of the few countries together with Malta, for example, that does not have this type of center. And now you see how necessary it is. Precisely the first two points of his manifesto seek to avoid these misfortunes:
- Create a Photographic Archive, with a virtual structure, that preserves our rich heritage and our common visual memory, facing the great pending digitization and creating a database of public access, integrating and facilitating access to the archives of the institutions that already have them. their own without losing, in any way, their legitimate ownership.
- Conserve, protect, promote and disseminate the Photographic Heritage.
Let’s hope that the errors regarding the loss of the ‘Cambio 16’ file are recognized, that we get to know what has really been lost and that this story is a new warning stone on which we should not fall again.