Urtasun chooses directors for the archive of social movements and the photography center

Through the method of free designation – the rightful fingerout – the Ministry of Culture has published on Monday the appointments of the directors of the Historical Archive of the Social Movements and the National Photography Center. They are, in this order, Marta Hernangómez Vázquez and Mónica Carabias Álvaro. The resolutions have been notified today in the Official State Gazette.

Marta Hernangómez, new director of the Historical Archive of Social MovementsShe is a training historian and official of the optional body of archives, libraries and museums, and has extensive experience in file management in the public sector.

He has worked in the General Archive of the Ministry of Interior and has been part of the Team of the General Sub -Directorate of Publications and Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Defense performing different tasks in the Archive Coordination Unit of the Heritage Area and in the General and Historical Archive of defense, among others.

Previously, he has worked on the central archives of different councils of the Community of Madrid, as well as in his regional archive. In addition, in his career he has also worked on the archives of the Student Residence or the Giner de los Ríos Foundation and has collaborated with different institutions such as the Anselmo Lorenzo Foundation or the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory.

The Historical Archive of Social Movements has been announced since 2021 with a line to cover documents related to the social movements of Tardofranchism or the beginning of democracy. Its opening began last year with a website for consultation of documents and an exhibition with images of the international brigades during several fighting of the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1938.

Project in Soria

Mónica Carabias Álvaro, the newly appointed director of the National Photography Centershe is a doctor in contemporary art history from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). In 2008, she entered the Faculty of Geography and History of this University, where she is a professor of the Department of Art History since 2019.

Likewise, since 2023 he directs the Complutense Institute for Feminist Research (Instiphem) and his research and curatorial career has focused on the history of photography in Spain from a double aspect.

On the one hand, as an instrument for the visual construction of historical memory in the twentieth century and on the other hand, around the role of women in the creation of artistic proposals and photographic development, with attention to emerging photographic creation and the new Methodological approaches.

In addition, it has directed projects such as’ new contemporary topographies. Of turns with the landscape ‘(2020-2023) and’ artificial intelligence: models and applications in the field of artistic creation, teaching, research and knowledge ‘(2023-2025).

Among his latest publications are ‘The place is important. Landscapes of the memory and memory of the landscape in the current photography ‘(2024),’ The move was not all: poptoography ‘(1980-1981), an author of Miguel Oriola (2023) and’ Magnum Photos in female: A mined field of contradictions’ (2022).

The opening of the National Photography Center, located in the former headquarters of the Bank of Spain in Soria, is scheduled in 2026 after an investment of the Ernest Urtasun department of almost 8.5 million euros.