The Graves of Francoism (Las fosas del Franquismo) is a project with a public service vocation that aims to promote democratic memory. Society has a moral obligation to undo the base of oblivion in order to never again repeat the most tragic episodes of our history. The project is multidisciplinary in nature, as it is approached from the perspective of archaeology, anthropology and historical memory.

The Diputación de València, with the Historical Memory Delegation, and the Department of Culture, with the Museums of Prehistory and L'ETNO, have produced two exhibitions, a publication and a programme of cultural activities, which aim to contribute to the truth, justice and reparation of the memory of the people shot in the Paterna Cemetery between 1939 and 1956. Special attention has been devoted to the victims and their families.

The exhibitions are: Archaeology of Memory. The Graves of Paterna (Arqueología de la Memoria. Las fosas de Paterna), organised by the Museum of Prehistory of Valencia, and 2238 Paterna. A place of perpetration and memory  (2238 Paterna. Lugar de perpetración y memoria), organised by L'ETNO, Museu Valencià d'Etnologia, which will help to strengthen critical thinking in the face of events that should never be repeated.

2238 Paterna. A place of perpetration and memory.

Approaching the contemporary exhumations of the graves of victims of Franco's regime from the perspective of social anthropology allows us to look beyond these graves. From this discipline, the analytical focus is placed on understanding in depth and in all its dimensions the dynamic social world that surrounds them and endows them with meaning, whether in institutional, associative or family environments.

From this point of view, exhuming involves much more than digging up bones. The view widens and allows us to introduce new agents, to move through time and space and to put ourselves in the place of those people who were murdered and humiliated by Franco's repression, as well as to walk with them along the paths of memory and oblivion.

All these issues are present in one way or another in the exhibition 2238. Paterna, Place of Perpetration and Memory, organised by L'ETNO. Through different spaces and periods, it takes us from the past to the present, from the houses and locked chests of drawers to the cemetery of Paterna and inside the graves, from the experiences of several generations to the suffering of men and women repressed for their way of thinking and living, for defending the legitimate government or for their political militancy.

In the first room (Room 2) we enter a mass grave. From inside, we are led to reflect on its existence and the reasons for the current demands for exhumations, thanks, above all, to the transmission of memory by women.

The first courtyard recreates the Paterna cemetery, showing us the spaces, the small and humble family tributes, the different political demands that have taken place there over time up to the present day.

In the second courtyard we can stop to assimilate all that we have been shown, digest the violence and fear of so many families and share the seeds of hope that encapsulate their demands.

This project is the result of the joint effort and work of many people: the curator, the person responsible for the design, the institution and its workers (restoration, conservation, communication, didactics, administration and management...). And, of course, it is the fruit of the generosity of the families who have selflessly allowed their private and intimate memory to become public heritage and collective memory.
Consult the brochure of complementary activities in the right-hand column.

➔10.00 h
Plantà in Corona street of the falla d'estiu El triunfo del Foot-ball (The Triumph of Football) presented in the exhibition De granotes, gats i palmeres. The Origins of the Levante U.D. de L'ETNO. Reproduction of the falla by Regino Mas and Rafael Albert that was set up on the 18th and 19th March 1923 in Mossen Sorell square, just a few metres from the current location of L'ETNO.

➔22.00h
Dinner at the bar/cafeteria service in the patio of L'ETNO (each person brings their own dinner). Reservation required at letno@dival.es

➔21.00 h
DJ World Music session by Paco Valiente in the courtyard of L'ETNO.

➔23.00h
Cremà de la falla (burning of the falla) in Corona street.

➔23.30h
Verbena (festivity) with Ele DJ in Corona Street.

Every Sunday of the months of the exhibition (July 2023 - April 2024) our guides will conduct free guided tours for all audiences to the temporary exhibition 2238 Paterna. Place of perpetration and memory, as part of the activities that will be carried out as part of the programme Las Fosas del Franquismo. Archaeology, Anthropology and Memory.

This programme, carried out jointly with the Museum of Prehistory of Valencia and the Delegation of Historical Memory of the Provincial Council of Valencia, includes another temporary exhibition organised by the Museum of Prehistory and which can also be visited at the La Beneficencia Museum Centre. It is called Archaeology of Memory. The graves of Paterna. The timetable can be chosen, i.e. you can see the Prehistory exhibition first (for example at 11 a.m.) and then the Ethnology exhibition (at 12:30 p.m.) or the other way round. They do not have a specific order, you can visit them as you see fit. 

Those who wish to visit the aforementioned exhibition should inform the information point at the Centro Museístico La Beneficencia, where groups of visitors will be formed.

The Turia Gardens are a space of indisputable urban, social and heritage value that has evolved with the city since its very foundation. In spite of everything, the awareness that allows us to perceive it in this way is still, to a large extent, yet to be built. The narratives, often focused on the catastrophic floods, have overlooked other types of economic, social and emotional relationships between the city and its river.

The conversion of the river into a garden from 1982 onwards expanded the idea that, before the transformation of the old river into a large green belt, it was a wasteland that was alien to the city. A place where nothing happened.

The result of photographic and documentary archive research, this exhibition tells the story of a reality that was more diverse and complex. The exhibition is divided into three sections: Living on the river, which focuses on the riverbed as a living space; Living from the river, which points out the different uses of resources often related to water; Living the river, which reveals the development of its social and popular use until it became a garden thanks to citizen mobilisation.

Looking at the past shows us how our everyday environment is constantly changing, the result of the evolution of the relationships between people and the environment they inhabit. Observing these processes helps to strengthen the emotional roots that link us to the spaces we inhabit, enjoy and are used to perceiving as natural and familiar.

València was not born with its back to the sea, as is often said, but deliberately facing its river.

The Turia Gardens are a space of indisputable urban, social and heritage value that has evolved with the city since its very foundation. In spite of everything, the awareness that allows us to perceive it in this way is still, to a large extent, yet to be built. The narratives, often focused on the catastrophic floods, have overlooked other types of economic, social and emotional relationships between the city and its river.

The conversion of the river into a garden from 1982 onwards expanded the idea that, before the transformation of the old river into a large green belt, it was a wasteland that was alien to the city. A place where nothing happened.

The result of photographic and documentary archive research, this exhibition tells the story of a reality that was more diverse and complex. The exhibition is divided into three sections: Living on the river, which focuses on the riverbed as a living space; Living from the river, which points out the different uses of resources often related to water; Living the river, which reveals the development of its social and popular use until it became a garden thanks to citizen mobilisation.

Looking at the past shows us how our everyday environment is constantly changing, the result of the evolution of the relationships between people and the environment they inhabit. Observing these processes helps to strengthen the emotional roots that link us to the spaces we inhabit, enjoy and are used to perceiving as natural and familiar.

València was not born with its back to the sea, as is often said, but deliberately facing its river.

​

In a human library, books are the people who transmit life stories and diverse tales that are never repeated. At L'ETNO Library we exchange paper books for human books that speak in the first person. In a human library you come to listen, to feel and to learn in a supportive and intercultural space because the books will be migrants from different countries who are willing to share their experiences with those who want to listen to them. All the human books are part of the València Acoge collective. 

L'ETNO Library is looking for readers interested in listening and living this experience. The recommended age is for people over 12 years old because the books are not fiction but contain very real stories and, as we all know, reality always surpasses fiction. However, if you have children over 12 at home, don't hesitate to take them with you because it is an enriching experience to activate and open the heart and mind. 
 
The books will change in each session, so you can attend both sessions without repeating readings. And a recommendation: plan your Saturday well and come without rushing, without thinking about shopping before lunch, without thinking about anything other than enjoying a good read.

Naiet Cirerer is a blind romancero who pays homage to those blind people who used to go around villages telling and singing about what was going on, in a festive way, sometimes in the style of Bernat i Baldoví, and even speaking in broken Valencian or Spanish, provoking laughter and amusement among the people who listened to his romances, habaneras, peteneras, valencianas, malagueñas, etc. It was a way of reliving with good music and good lyrics those cool evenings that our ancestors were so grateful for. A show that leaves no one indifferent.  

Naiet Cirerer (vocals, turuta, flabiol and dulzaina), Pep Juste Mama (vocals and guitar), Eduard Navarro (bandurria, lute and dulzaina).

Urbàlia Rurana have been cultivating their particular style of traditional Valencian music for more than three decades, faithful to their founding idea of bringing this music closer to the influences of other countries on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1990, they have performed on stages and at festivals all over the Iberian Peninsula and in many European countries, and have released seven albums, which have received awards and critical and public acclaim. The group, which has become one of the fundamental groups of Valencian folk music, has actively participated in the promotion and creation of roots music festivals (Cant al Ras de Massalfassar, Festacarrer de Ondara and Xàbia Folk, among others).

The group has collaborated with other prestigious groups and artists in shows and record productions: with the Catalan group Primera Nota (Folk nou, 1997), with the Piedmontese musician Maurizio Martinotti (Cante delle terre del riso, 2000; Territoris amables, 2002) and with the Valencian band La Romàntica del Saladar (La vespra i la festa). At present, he presents diverse repertoires in concert format (Sarau mediterrani and La vespra i la festa), dance (Sarau a la plaça) and even Christmas repertoire (Cançons de Nadal valencianes), as well as his anthological concert Urbàlia Rurana 30 anys de camí, a selection of songs from all his 7 recordings and other proposals for the future.

Jaume Gosàlbez (dulzaina, tarota, flute and vocals), Carles Gil (accordion, mandolins and vocals), Toni Torregrossa (guitar, guitarrón and vocals), Joan Buigues (tuba and vocals) and Bernat Pellisser (drums, percussion and vocals).

Krama, a band led by the Greek guitarist Spyros Kaniaris, explores modes and rhythms from the Balkans, Greece and the Black Sea, and creates a common ground where Mediterranean sonorities and songs intervene with convoluted rhythms and games with open and tense harmonies, in an approach that combines crisp sound universes with others full of serenity.

In this concert they will present works from their 15-year career and new compositions. In their music, traditional Greek instruments such as the lyre, the bouzouki, the sarangi coexist with eight-string guitars or the double bass, accompanied by percussion instruments (cajon, udu, tambourines). The lyrics of the songs are original in Valencian and by poets such as Vicent Andrés Estelles, Isabel Garcia Canet or translations into Valencian of the Greek poets Kostas Karyotakis and Odiseas Elytis.

Krama has participated in festivals such as Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, Polirítmia (València) ETNOMÚSIC (Valencia), Folk Segovia, Festival Internacional de Música de Gandia, Indrets Sonors, Espai Mediterrani, Fira de Vic, and have performed in Malta, Hungary, Germany, Egypt, and Algeria. They have received the Premi Ovidi Montllor 2010 and the Premi Mediterrània 2008 of the Fira d'Espectacles d'Arrel Tradicional Mediterrània de Manresa. 

Spyros Kaniaris (guitar, lyra de Pontos, sarangui), David Gadea (percussion), Rafel Arnal (vocals), Xuso Barberá (double bass).

Considered by critics as "the voice of the new generation of cante jondo", Rocío Márquez has spent more than a decade building a solid artistic career that today overflows the flamenco scene, where she is already a clear reference and consolidated figure. 

Her restless personality and enormous curiosity are evident in her discography, which across the board shows us both her great love for the flamenco tradition and her imperious need to expand the limits of that same tradition, exploring and experimenting with melodies, instrumentation, arrangements and lyrics. His work has been presented at the most renowned festivals on the flamenco circuit and at indie and pop/rock events such as Primavera Sound or Monkey Week, or venues such as the Matadero in Madrid or the CCCB in Barcelona. 

At ETNOMÚSIC she presents her project Tercer cielo, where Rocío Márquez has found as a partner Bronquio, a young musician from Jerez with a punk tradition and a figure on the Spanish electronic scene. Both create a mental and creative space-time framework in which the voice, the bodies, the breath, the machine, the magnetic field are linked by the umbilical cord of flamenco, with a clear voice and babbling in sound textures, modelling, electronic music resources and a lot of poetry, like that of García Lorca. 

Rocío Márquez (voices and bodies), Bronquio (programming and synthesizer).

Given the characteristics of the concert (dance music) the seating capacity will be much smaller than usual, i.e. the audience will be standing.