In recent years, the Valencian territory has been nurtured by a good number of museums and centres for the dissemination of our popular and traditional cultural heritage. These museums and interpretation centres were born from the impulse of the many town councils that have decided to set up stable structures to protect and disseminate this valuable heritage among the citizens.

The Diputación de València, through L'ETNO, launched ETNOXARXA in 2020, a collaborative structure aimed at promoting the work of these local museums, in which the II FIRA ETNOPOBLES, Fair of Local Ethnological Museums, a project that has been organised to publicise the offer of these cultural centres among the general public, especially in the city of Valencia, and to promote the access of new visitors to these museums, is framed.
 

PARTICIPANTS

• Museu Internacional de Titelles, Albaida
• Museu del Palmito-MUPA, Aldaia
• Museu Valencià de la Festa, Algemesí
• Museu Etnològic, Almàssera
• Museo Etnológico, Alpuente
• EtnoMUMA, Alzira
• Ecomuseo, Aras de los Olmos
• Museu Valencià del Paper, Banyeres de Mariola
• Ecomuseo, Bicorp · Centro de Interpretación del Torico, Chiva
• Museu de la Pilota, el Genovés
• Museu Històric-Etnològic, la Font de la Figuera
• Museu de la Casa del Pou, la Llosa de Ranes
• Museu del Tèxtil de la Comunitat Valenciana, Ontinyent
• Museu de la Rajoleria, Paiporta
• Museu de Cassoleria Àngel Domínguez, Potries
• Museu de l’Aigua Molí Nou, Quartell
• Museo Municipal, Requena 
• Museu Comarcal de l’Horta Sud Josep Ferrís March, Torrent
• Museo Municipal, Utiel · Museu de la Pedra en Sec, Vilafranca
• Colección Museográfica de Yátova. 
   
   

Esta exposición está en diálogo con la sala CIUDAD: LOCAL Y GLOBAL donde la parte final está dedicada a los muros de la ciudad. Algunos son físicos, cierran y separan espacios y propiedades a la vez que sirven como espacio de comunicación política, comercial y de expresión artística. Otros son más altos, simbólicos y más invisibles: esconden desigualdad social, pobreza, marginalidad y soledad.

Jaime Belda nos presenta un mapa de memorias y recuerdos urbanos de la ciudad de València atravesados por su visión fotográfica contemporánea. Rafa estaba delante cuando asesinaron a Manuel Broseta en la avenida Blasco Ibáñez. A Manoli se le precipitó una persona al lado desde arriba del Hotel Mandarín. . Lilian aprendió a regar a manta a la huerta de Benimaclet. Paca fue testigo de la caída desde un camión del canto rodado que ahora descansa en la calle Peset Aleixandre. Todas y todos tenemos recuerdos importantes ligados en espacios públicos de la ciudad. Algunos forman parte de nuestro imaginario popular, otros configuran nuestra historia, algunos nos definen a nivel territorial y, por supuesto, la mayor parte narran la propia experiencia.

El trabajo llamado Genius Loci recupera algunos de estos recuerdos mediante la voz directa de sus protagonistas. El título de la obra hace referencia a “el espíritu del lugar” de los antiguos romanos, al cúmulo de esas vivencias que conforman lo que somos.

Alrededor de 300 personas han colaborado en la configuración de este mapa de la memoria de la ciudad de València. Un mapa en que se superponen historia, etnografía y vida cotidiana sin jerarquías. La fotografía de Belda, una visión del punto exacto de cada recuerdo recibido, sirve como apoyo y homenaje a cada una de las voces que componen este archivo en construcción que se enriquece con cada nuevo testigo.

La presentación en la sala es solo una pequeña parte seleccionada a partir del trabajo completo de Jaime Belda, que podéis investigar en su sitio web interactivo.
 

Discovering walls, is the result of the artistic-therapeutic project Re-Creating identity, conceived and carried out by Albert Fernández and Mónica Cases in collaboration with L'ETNO and the Mental Health Hospital of the Diputación de Valencia. Aimed at people diagnosed with mental health, the works on display come from several sessions with a similar structure: a visit to the permanent exhibition, where generic concepts that define and identify us as a group are extracted and analyzed, and the creation of debates and experiences that promote reflection and knowledge of individual identity.

The work of approaching the concept of identity -the fundamental subject of study of anthropology- and the discovery of the factors and walls that have intervened in the processes of individual and collective construction, has favored the knowledge of the “I” and of one's own real identity by each of the participants.

As a paradigm of the rapprochement between culture and mental health, L'ETNO, in dialogue with the space that made its conception possible, presents Discovering Walls with the ultimate purpose of demonstrating: the ability to express and represent, through art, the museum's commitment to inclusivity and collaboration between two fields (heritage and health) for the benefit of the well-being of the whole collective and society as a whole.

Where does Discovering Walls come from?

From an institutional perspective, L'ETNO aims, and has been aiming for years, to bring the fields of heritage and health closer together through the construction of collaborative spaces and projects that promote social welfare.

The interest in the implementation of social actions and projects is justifiable from a double perspective: that of its typology, since the complex process of creation and change of cultural identity is a subject of fundamental study of anthropology, and that of a public social museum that transgresses its physical barriers or walls and is concerned with, and does its best to solve, the needs of its environment.

In this context, and through the Re-Creating Identity project, the present intervention arises. Discovering walls is just a physical sample of the multiple workshops carried out during the activity; a look at the creative process with which Albert Fernández and Mónica Cases, during their visit to the exhibition It's not easy to be Valencian, have worked on the construction of the identity of people diagnosed with mental health.

The project, based on a reflective, dialogic, artistic and creative methodology, has addressed: the nature of emotions and their management, the process of socialization within the group, the construction of the “I” and, above all, the identity or personal milestones that determine who and why we are or why we act in a certain way.
 

L'exposició es compon d’un total de 89 obres realitzades entre els anys 70 i les primeres dècades dels anys 80 del segle XX. El material s'ha organitzat en cinc apartats: barri xinés, gitanos, el rastre, Sant Esteve i altres.
 
En l’apartat dedicat al barri xinés es mostren imatges captades de la quotidianitat d'aquest singular ambient dels anys 70, totes elles realitzades amb un enquadrament perfecte, on el fotògraf, dissimuladament, fotografiava les diferents escenes. D’altra banda, les instantànies relatives a l’ètnia gitana constitueixen retrats des d'una confiança que permet plasmar la mirada d'un poble que volia recordar les seues arrels. El rastre, el qual roman fotografiat quan encara aquest s’ubicava en la plaça de Nàpols i Sicília, mostra persones retratades de forma directa, una vegada més amb la confiança que el fotògraf establia amb el personatge. En l'apartat dedicat a la plaça de Sant Esteve es barregen els jocs infantils, la pobresa i l'activitat d'una joventut que jugava a ser major. L'exposició es tanca amb un apartat general sobre València, on es capten moments fugaços emmarcats dintre una composició impecable.

Joaquín Collado va nàixer a València en 1930 i s'inicià en la fotografia de forma autodidacta en 1965. Aquest ex treballador de banca cultivava durant el seu temps lliure la seua afició de fotografiar persones, personatges i enclavaments de la ciutat. La seua mirada respecte de la vida urbana és una barreja d'immediatesa, fugacitat, cerca de l'instant òptim i enquadrament perfecte. La mostra, comissariada per Luis Carrasco Llopis, compta amb el suport d’AGFOVAL (l'Agrupación Fotográfica Valenciana) i el Círculo Collado.
 

"Sustainability. Museus km 0" is a collective exhibition that wants to show, and also claim, how some concepts and mechanisms of sustainable management that claim contemporaneity live in the traditional knowledge that ethnological museums keep. Knowing that, many times, today's society has forgotten them and that they can be considered beyond nostalgia and their heritage significance. Repair, reuse, exchange, share and collaborate are not our concepts.

Beyond the content, the exhibition is interesting as a project of joint work between museums, with all that this means. Coordinating an appointed group, covering the different rhythms and reaching consensus among diverse approaches has been a long and laborious process, but it has been more than compensated by the experience we have gained and by the demonstration that we are capable of doing things together.

This joint work has been done within the framework of ETNOXARXA, a project of collaboration and interconnection between local ethnological museums in the province of Valencia.

The second selected experience can be found in the room HORTA I MARJAL: THE IMAGINARIES, where the final part is dedicated to food, specifically to the dish that represents the imaginary for the excellence of our territory, which has already become a global icon: Paella.

L' ETNO has collaborated with the photographer Ricardo Cases in the publication of the second edition of his work "Paellas y Coches", available in the museum shop. Accompanying the publication, we will be able to enjoy this original photographic series in the permanent rooms of the museum for a few months, in dialogue with the story of the permanent exhibition.

Nowadays it is not unusual to see paellas in the most unexpected places. In today's dynamic world, in which haste and lack of time threaten some classic social rituals related to food, Valencians have found solutions. With the good weather, our roads are filled with frying pans travelling in cars on their way to all kinds of homes. This photographic work was born in the restaurant L'Alter in Picassent (Horta Sud) which cooks more than 80 paellas a day to take away during the summer months. Ricardo Cases presents these motorised still lifes, where he explores new visual imaginaries around the representation of paella.

The first selected experience is to be found in the CITY: LOCAL AND GLOBAL room, where the final part is dedicated to the walls of the city, a space for reflection on the urbanism that surrounds us in cities. The physical walls and the invisible walls towards other social strata, as well as a space for political, commercial and artistic communication.

We present LOVE ON THE OUTSKIRTS, where the urban artist and photographer Pedro Mecinas and Lucia Gimeno document photographically during their urban explorations a collection of spontaneous graffiti with messages of love scattered around the city, suburbs and villages of Valencia. Like all archives, it is still in process, open and expanding to other territories in the embers of Pedro and Lucia's travels. Together, they continue to document this collection of emotions that you can follow on their instagram account @amordeextraradi.

In the words of the authors "how intense what you are feeling must be to have to leave it written on any surface without knowing if anyone will ever read you, understand you and feel anything. Without knowing what story is behind it".

City walls are also used as a form of romantic and sentimental communication. Documentary remnants of affection, break-ups, desires, dreams, disappointments and sufferings that instantly connect with all the anonymous people who look at them. An explosion of the private personal world in the public space that reminds us that shared emotions are also part of what binds us together as a society.

Treasures with history is a programme that the Valencian Public Television À Punt has been broadcasting successfully for the last three seasons. It deals with the objects that people keep as precious material, as an emotional treasure full of experiences and memories. It is a well-known fact that objects have the capacity to establish emotional connections with people, and the complexity of this relationship is the subject of Treasures with history. L'ETNO now brings you closer to this universe of objects that from history, ethnology or art have built part of our memory as a people over the last 200 years. 

Produced in collaboration with the Valencian Institute of Culture, Treasures with History 2 is an exhibition organised by L'ETNO to show the public the more than one hundred treasures selected for the programme.

Treasures with history is a programme that the Valencian Public Television À Punt has been broadcasting successfully for the last three seasons. It deals with the objects that people keep as precious material, as an emotional treasure full of experiences and memories. It is a well-known fact that objects have the capacity to establish emotional connections with people, and the complexity of this relationship is the subject of Treasures with history. L'ETNO now brings you closer to this universe of objects that from history, ethnology or art have built part of our memory as a people over the last 200 years. 

Produced in collaboration with the Valencian Institute of Culture, Treasures with History 2 is an exhibition organised by L'ETNO to show the public the more than one hundred treasures selected for the programme.