To the rescue of the memory that the mud took away

Beyond the price of an object is its value, and the latter sometimes has little to do with money, especially when it comes to feelings. The memory of people, events and times It is stored in albums and boxes through photographs and a fire or a flood can erase in one fell swoop faces and moments that only remain on paper. For this reason, the University of Valencia, in collaboration with the rest of the public universities of the Community and with other organizations, has launched the project Save the photoswhich offers those affected by the floods the possibility of recovering their damaged snapshots, or in other words, of rescuing the family archive. In just two months They have received nearly 400,000 snapshots.

Ana Piedrafor example, arrived at one of the laboratories of the UV Museum of Natural History trembling, with teary eyes and with the only photograph that his mother, 76, managed to save of his father, now deceased. “The families are very grateful because they also We have gone out to the affected areas to set up field laboratories. There are areas like Paiporta or Catarroja where storage rooms are still being emptied and that is where many of the albums are stored,” explains the director of the Heritage Area of ​​the Universitat Marisa Vázquez de Ágredoswho believes they will have the capacity to manage the huge number of photos.

Time works against them because if an image is attacked by fungi it is almost irrecoverable: “We have to choose well what we are going to save. We have to do a triage,” he says. Here, the restorers are the doctors and the photographs, which are stacked in the buckets, the patients waiting their turn. Thus, they focus on those that can offer the best results, among which stand out the oldestthose from the beginning of the century in black and white, which better resist mud damage.

Only in the UV, a team of 40 volunteers works on the recovery of snapshots damaged by water and mud. The ultimate objective is to save the memory of families and towns. The volunteer experts have designed a protocol that consists of wash, dry and stabilizebut they have to improvise because the volume of material is enormous and the resources are scarce. They clean the images with tap water and distilled water. They collect them from the buckets with great care not to directly touch the photographic paper at any time. They remove the mud that remains with brushes. And, finally, they dry them by air so that the humidity and the smell with which they arrive disappear.

“We have been in contact with those responsible for this same work in Katrina in the United States or in the tsunami in Japan and we are moving forward, it is a process that will last a long time, months, but little by little we will return the albums,” says the Director of Heritage at the UV. In addition, starting in January they will begin to carry out digital copiesso the photographs will also return on this medium. “A photograph conveys a memory, of an excursion or a wedding, and on that layer there will be a new one shared by society, which is that of DANA. In other emergencies the same has been done, that mark has been left,” he explains. Vázquez, who highlights the importance of memory for recovery after the Valencia catastrophe.

EDUARDO MANZANA / EP

“We all have photo albums. If I know my great-grandparents it is because my mother keeps hers. That brings us closer to the past and establishes links with the presentwith traditions, generates identity and allows us to project into the future,” he concludes.

Document repository

The UV Faculty of Social Sciences has launched an open initiative to create a documentary repository on the effects of DANA and its repercussions on the affected populations. In the first phase, digital materials (videos, audios, photos) can be uploaded to a website, the second will be analysis and the third will be publication of the materials. The repository will be free to consult.