The exhibition Fotografies com espai públic (Photographs as a public space) has two fundamental objectives. Firstly, it presents pieces that have become part of the Col·lecció Nacional de Fotografia de la Generalitat de Catalunya (National Photography Collection of the Government of Catalonia) over the past three years and that are currently preserved in several institutions: MNAC, MACBA, the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona (Photographic Archive of Barcelona) and the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya (National Archive of Catalonia). On the other hand, it invites us to reflect on the experience that photography puts into play as a set of practices and languages that constitute a space in which everyone engages in different ways.

The Col·lecció Nacional de Fotografia was created in 2014 on the initiative of the Pla Nacional de Fotografia (National Photography Plan) with the goal of ensuring that the most important signature photographic expressions in Catalonia are displayed, protected and appreciated. During 2015, 2016 and 2017 a total of 881 pieces by 45 artists have been acquired, of which the exhibition Fotografies com espai públic features photography and other projects carried out by 19 artists, dating as far back as 1959 (including several photographs by Francisco Ontañón) up until 2013 (Werker Collective, Aleix Plademunt, Jordi Guillumet-Mònica Roselló and Tanit Plana-Laia Ramos).

The historical transversality of the acquisitions of the Col·lecció Nacional de Fotografia de Catalunya puts us face to face with photographs from a diverse range of periods and purposes, demonstrating the richness and importance of the questions posed by the medium’s properties. At the same time, this diversity constitutes an excellent opportunity to approach the ideas that inspired the photographic projects that make up this collection as well as those we consider to belong under the general heading of photography as an art form.

Using a sequence that clearly underlines the contrast of methods and approaches, the exhibition aims to emphasise this diversity of photographic culture, highlighting the extent to which its principal narratives affect not only the authors’ practices or creative processes, but also how they regulate and condition our experience as viewers. To learn to appreciate this diversity of ideas, approaches and practices will allow us to realise how and to what extent the medium’s most generic discourses modulate how photography can affect us and how we take part in its constant attribution of new meaning.