Searching for Leo Exhibition Catalogue

How can creative uses of the archive impact on a place which has been affected by the trauma of forgetting?
How can remembering change both the way individuals/a collective memorialise their past?
How can reflection on the past bring clarity to the contemporary situation in Spain?

I embark on a modern pilgrimage to Spain in search of my grandfather, Leopoldo Savignac Battistini. He was a photographer from Venezuela who emigrated to Spain and worked there 1909-1948.
The story is about the journey, my observations, and discoveries. It touches on my grandfather’s link to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. It weaves memoir, travel writing, photography and cultural history to explore ideas of place and home. The journey is also an emotional and spiritual one and includes the conversations I have with people I meet along the way. It is a reflection on trauma, loss, and grief (Spain’s desire to forget, my mother’s losses and my own).

The project aims to look more broadly through the reconstruction of memory to how a society can cope with atrocity. This will be explored through text, photographs and film in the catalogue and in the exhibition space. Each venue will contain its own conversation with the work of Savignac depending on the phase of his work.

With an introduction by Maddi Elorza, Universidad de Pais Vasco.