Correspondences is an online project that wants to reflect on the relevance that photography has taken in contemporary visual culture without losing the historical perspective and its original contexts of creation and dissemination.

Each of the sections of Correspondences lasts two months during which two experts in the field develop a dialogue around a topic that changes with each new edition. The chosen format of these conversations is intended to refer us to the old correspondence, where there was a lapse of time between the moment a letter was received and it was answered. In this way, this program wants to vindicate “slow reflection” in an era marked by the “here and now”.

The program started in 2016 under the statement But what is photography?, a question that, rather than trying to provide a single answer, aimed to show how photography, understood as a set of technologies and practices, discourses and languages and as an archive in constant expansion, resists being fixed in a single place and time . The participants in these dialogues were: Abigail Solomon-Godeau and Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir, Urs Stahel and Hester Keijser , and Joan Fontcuberta with Geoffrey Batchen .

In 2017 the issue Photography: In print | Online (Printed photography | online photography) served as a starting point to approach these two environments where photography resides and can be found. Fred Ritchin and Nathan Jurgenson in a first part, and Marta Gili with Georges Didi-Huberman in a second part, they talked about photography from the channels of circulation and distribution of images.

Editing 2018 started from the point of view of the receiver: under the motto Reading the images , the dialogues focused on how the image, as a language other than written, is subject to other codes also associated with the symbolic and narrative, such as other ways to access information and knowledge. We have Valentín Roma and Mercedes Cebrián in a first dialogue, and David Campany with Anastasia Samoylova in a second conversation.

The delivery in 2019 of Correspondences is divided into two thematic blocks that allow us to carry out a resonance with the exhibition program of the year. Coinciding with Laia Abril’s exhibition “On Abortion” , the dialogue between Remedios Zafra and María Ruido will revolve around the idea of the body and visual representation . The second installment of the year will revolve around the idea of image and counterculture , and will coincide with our exhibition dedicated to “La Movida”, inaugurated in Les Rencontres d’Arles in July and which will arrive in Barcelona in mid-October, and in which they will participate Borja Casani and Andrea Valdes .

In 2020 comes the 5th edition of Correspondences , by the hand of Carles Guerra and Ariella Aïsha Azoulay , with Photography on Strike being the title of the new dialogue. As Carles himself points out in his first letter to Ariella, the objective will be “to focus on the role of photography regarding new ways of understanding political action. More specifically, what can photography do to improve this world without falling into the humanist temptation that has dominated much of its history ”.

Coinciding with the exhibition ‘Based on true stories. Colectania Photo Collection‘, the 6th edition of Correspondences has counted with the participation of Rosa Olivares and Sema D’Acosta, under the the title Based on Spanish photography.

In 2022, we present the 7th edition of Correspondences, entitled “Face Values“, whose dialogue between Wolfgang Ullrich and Jana Haeckel focuses on the value that has gained the power and dominion over the face. This epistolary series coincides with the exhibition “Face Control“.

Publication dates of the letters in the 7th Edition:

• Correspondences, weekly publication of 4 letters between Wolfgang Ullrich and Jana Haeckel: February 3, 10, 17 and 24.
• Face to Face: Final conversation via Zoom, March 10.