olenka macassi

Bianya/Viaña 1937

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27 foto-transfers on Hahnemüller paper

Hahnemüller paper on cardboard

Foto-transfers: 14x11.5cm 

2015-16

Vall de Bianya - Barcelona. 

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The project Bianya/Viaña 1937 lies in a postcard that I found in Barcelona during the February of 2015. This postcard has on the back cover written in pencil the following text: «Sant Salvador de Bianya 1937» but under the word «Bianya» puts the apparent correction of «Viaña».

Was precisely this "correction" that prompted to initiate a process of documentation that I took me to investigate the relationship between the date (1937), the place (Sant Salvador of Bianya) and the territory (Girona). The research and the continous trips from Barcelona to Sant Salvador de Vianya directed me to a historical context: Spanish civil war, the language change and the officialization of Spanish as the official language of Spain and therefore, the renaming of cities and towns in Catalonia. From Bianya to Viaña.

Following the traces of a postcard as complementary part of this documentation aswell as the many trips I did to Sant Salvador de Bianya from Barcelona, each one different from the others. I eventually took the postcard with in every trip I did, passed over it and the image started to lose itself on the paper giving way to an inminent disappearance.

Starting precisely on this disappearance, I intervened this postcard until the complete elimination of the image until I reached the absolute white. ​