22 February 2012

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

PAMPLONA AND SAN SATURNINO

Photos with history around San Cernin

Ms. Ana Hueso Pérez.
file Municipal of Pamplona

All human groups elaborate their own foundational myths, cementing a common identity and affirming themselves as a collectivity through them. Throughout different moments of its historical evolution, the society of Pamplona and Navarre has found these references in figures such as San Fermín and San Francisco Javier, the Virgin of the Way and San Saturnino, the latter being the oldest reference and the one with the greatest European projection.

The consequent and diverse material and immaterial manifestations of the cult and devotion around the saint of Toulouse, reflect in a unique and singular way the nature and evolution of the people of Pamplona, of their ways of organizing and ordering the territory they inhabit, of their values and beliefs and of their mental universe, with the added value of constituting extraordinary expressions that have been part of the rich Cultural Heritage of the City for more than a millennium.

In the second half of the 19th century, the photographic technique began to take root in our city, capable of showing aspects of the visible world with a fidelity that no previous graphic technique had been able to achieve, so that "all photography - as R. Barthes pointed out with concise precision - is a certificate of presence". source Testimonies of the transformation and evolution of the lives of people and societies, photographic documents have become an essential source of information for the research of any discipline.

The file Municipal of Pamplona, manager of the collection, conservation, organization and diffusion of photographic collections and collections, considered of interest for the history of the city, welcomes the proposal to participate in the lecture series "Pamplona and San Saturnino" with the topic "Photographs with History around San Cernin" for being an excellent resource to fulfill this last of its objectives, the diffusion of the Photographic Patrimony of Pamplona.

The selection of forty-five photographs, belonging to the Municipal Fund of Pamplona, the Fund of the magazine "La Avalancha", the J.J. Arazuri Collection, the J. Soria Collection and the private Azcárate Collection, taken between 1890ca. and 1990, both by amateur photographers and recognized professionals, leads us to structure exhibition in four sections:
1- Panoramic views of the city, in which the towers of the Church of San Cernin constitute, from the compositional point of view, the central iconographic element of five studied photographic captures by five authors, between 1900ca and 1993.

2- A set of thirteen images, dated between 1890ca and 1990, show, from different angles, architectural details of the exterior of the temple.

3- The transformation of the urban space, first Bolserías Street and then San Saturnino, the heart of the Burgo de San Cernin, is reliably documented in eight snapshots taken between 1892 and 1976.

4- Finally, twenty-two images inform us of the details of the religious festivities, their modifications and evolution throughout the 20th century.

Former Calle de las Bolserías. Beginning of the demolition of several houses to build the private house, work of the architect Julián Arteaga, located between c/ Nueva (nº 2) and c/ San Saturnino (nº 1). Copy on albumen paper. AMP/Fondo "La Avalancha", unknown author.1892. 

Procession of San Saturnino passing through La Taconera street. First known image of the religious celebration, around 1906. Copy on chemically developed paper that reproduces an image from ca.1906 AMP/Arazuri Collection. Author: J. Ayala Yaben. 1906