Mercaderas

Photo archives preserve the visual memory of a place, a group of people or a period in time. They are collections of images that, depending on their structure and order, tell one story or another, and lionise some issues while hiding others.

In this new project carried out in collaboration with the Fototeka Kutxa foundation, Ainhoa ​​Resano has explored the archive of more than a million images taken in Gipuzkoa throughout the 20th century, to focus on Mercaderas (Market Women). Resano recovers the women who worked in the markets, who were assigned secondary spaces both in the society of their time, and in the photographs that were taken of them. The series shows aspects of everyday life in central social spaces such as the markets themselves or town and city squares. The images reflect aspects of daily life that build the collective memory of a place and its people.

By bringing the market women to the forefront of the archive, Resano vindicates their figure, while questioning the gender and class structures that had led to them being forgotten.

Ainhoa Resano, born in Iruña in 1974, is a visual artist and cultural manager. She lives in Bilbao, where she has developed most of her personal work and her career as a professional performing arts photographer. Her projects focus on the questioning of identity from a gender perspective, exploring the margins of dissidence and role-playing. She has participated in exhibitions at the University of the Basque Country, Espacio Cultural Kubil, CFC Bilbao, Sarean or the Baffest Festival, and her work has been published in El Salto, Clavoardiendo, Contraluz magazine or Contratiempo. Since 2016 she has been working on “Ellas”, a multidisciplinary project that seeks to expose and make visible the life stories of women through their domestic photographs and their own stories. This project has received the “M8 Sariak” award from Bilbao Historiko for its work in recovering the historical memory of the women of “Los Barrios Altos de Bilbao”. Throughout 2022, and in collaboration with La Balsa Editora, Ainhoa has worked on the construction of an artist’s book that brings together the project, an album that displays the photographic and sound testimonies of these women.

OUTDOOR INSTALLATION

4 ANÓNIMAS

Venue: Casino Algorteño
Address: Basagoiti 47, Algorta

INDOOR EXHIBITION

5 MERCADERAS

Venue: Market of Algorta
Address: Torrene 4, Algorta