Often, literature is a source of inspiration for photography books. And photography has also been a generous source of topics for literature. Libraries could play a role to encourage this crossroads of languages. For example, they could ask someone to do a literary interpretation of a photographic work, or a photographic interpretation of literary texts, be it poetry or prose.
The Centre de Fotografia Documental de Barcelona, in collaboration with the Xarxa de Biblioteques de Barcelona, supports this project, which gives a photographer the opportunity to visually interpret the atmosphere of a novel set in Barcelona. It’s not the eye behind the word poorly illustrating the imaginary… In this exercise of “photo interpretation” about illustration, the photographer will have to track the author’s imagination in a daily and urban space. The surprise will be to feel again the intense vibe of fiction that is now embedded in the city’s identifiable physique. Projecting fiction on reality, like slides over objects adapting to the relief, these photos should match perfectly the idea and the environment and the characters. And if the experience is successful, we’ll never be able to separate our vision of that corner, the characters’ dialogue and breath that we couldn’t see in the novel.
Laura TerrÉ, for the Centre de Fotografia Documental de Barcelona
| EDITIONS |
2009 - Rafael Arocha
Biblioteques de Barcelona and the Centre de Fotografia Documental de Barcelona present the fifth edition of the project Photointerpretation of literary texts. RAFAEL AROCHA keeps a dialogue with the city motivated by three poets: "Carlos Barral, Jaime Gil de Biedma and José Agustín Goytisolo. | 2008 - Gemma Miralda
Biblioteques de Barcelona and the Centre de Fotografia Documental de Barcelona present the fourth edition of the project Photointerpretation of literary texts. Gemma Miralda, give us her photografic interpretation about the book “Última oda a Barcelona” by Lluís Calvo and Jordi Valls (La Garúa llibres, 2008). | | 2007 - Laura Covarsí Laura Covarsí
FOTOINTERPRETA
“París no se acaba nunca”
de Enrique Vila-Matas.
Biblioteques de Barcelona and the Centre de Fotografia Documental de Barcelona present the third edition of the project Photointerpretation of literary texts.
In this ocasion, the young photographer Laura Covarsí shows us her photographic interpretation of the book “París no se acaba nunca” by Enrique Vila-Matas | | 2006 - Navia "La Creciente", Territorios literarios de América Latina: MÉXICO, JUAN RULFO; COLOMBIA, ÁLVARO MUTIS; PARAGUAY, ROA BASTOS | | 2005 - Tatiana Donoso Southern Seas:
"I close the book and go out to walk on the streets of Barcelona, searching with each step the moments, lights, and silences to build the stage of a new lost paradise: Southern Seas by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.
I face the challenge of photointerpreting the atmosphere of one of the most emblematic books in the series about Detective Carvalho. It’s about going in and out of the words, searching in them, and in me, the memory lane to rebuild Montalbán’s look and to ask myself which are my own “Southern seas”. It’s also about a parallel trip to novel’s and to search for a literary paradise in a city that is familiar and unknown, at the same time.
This is my trip and my challenge.
Detective Pepe Carvalho is working in the last year in the life of a Stuart Pedrell, a businessman from Catalunya’s high burgeoisie who disappears. Everybody thinks he’s in Tahiti in search of his hero, Gauguin. His body is found in a suburb, Trinitat Vella, and this is the starting point for the unraveling plot where Carvalho finds out that Stuart Pedrell had actually found his personal paradise in Bellvitge, in the outskirts of Barcelona. The author moves the center of the plot outside of the city, and the “Chinese quarter” is simply a passing point and the burgeoisie becomes an ephemeral and superficial way of life.
I walked the streets of these three stages looking for Carvalho’ own look, as well as for the evidence to reflect the visual trip to the South Seas. Once I closed the book that had been my companion these past months, I let my imagination, and my camera, free to search in Barcelona for Montalban’s homesickness for a city that will never be the same, that disappeared with the 1992 Olympic Games. Working in this “photointerpretation”, my own city has surprised me and I have discovered new territories. I dove into the streets as if I were a traveler with no plane tickets or passports and I let the subway take me to the Barcelona of words and memories, to Montalbán’s Barcelona".
Tatiana Donoso |
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