Re-generating the Family Album – Photography, Memory and Community

Next Saturday, June 7, 2025, Catarroja will host a very special event: Re-generating the Family Album, a community-driven and participatory initiative promoted by the Imatge i Acció Association, with the support and collaboration of ANDANA.

This activity aims to support families affected by the DANA storm on October 29 in the symbolic reconstruction of their visual and emotional memory. During that catastrophe, many people lost photographs, portraits, entire albums that held decades of memories. Those images were not just paper and ink: they were roots, stories of childhood, family, and community. And when photographs disappear, it’s not just an object that vanishes: part of what was lived and felt also fades away.

That’s why this event is much more than a cultural activity: it offers the chance to rebuild a new album that reflects who we are now.

Participants will have the opportunity to take the first photograph for their new album, receive a printed copy, take part in creative workshops, and enjoy cultural activities in a warm, welcoming, and transformative environment.

Families from the affected towns, as well as friends and volunteers who played a key role in the days following the catastrophe, are all invited.

Because when we lose the photographs that hold our memories, it’s not just objects that disappear Traces of identity, bonds, and roots also vanish. And in that absence, the need arises to rebuild, to look again, to imagine a new album.

A Photograph to Start Anew

During the event, participants will have the opportunity to take the first photograph for their new album, after the loss caused by the DANA storm An image that marks the beginning of a new chapter. A printed, tangible photograph, filled with meaning.

Accompanied by professional photographers and a team committed to emotional and playful support, families, neighbors, volunteers, and children will be able to take part in creative workshops, share images, build new memories, and enjoy a day filled with connection, culture, and care.

📍 Check out the full event program here:  imatgeiaccio.org

Photography as a Tool for Social Reconstruction

Photography, beyond its aesthetic or documentary value, can become a powerful tool for personal, emotional, and social reconstruction. When a community experiences a loss like the one caused by the DANA storm in Catarroja, recovering images —or creating new ones— helps to reactivate memory, strengthen bonds, and rebuild individual and collective identities

But we cannot speak of self-knowledge through photography without turning to the family album.

This object, so often kept on a shelf or in a box, is an emotional archive — a visual narrative of our lives. The family album holds more than portraits: it preserves gestures, absences, celebrations, losses, and symbolic legacies that shape who we are.

We all live within family systems that imprint us with ideas, beliefs, wounds, and loyalties. These influences do not disappear, but looking at them closely can be a starting point for their integration. In this sense, family photography becomes a gateway to understanding our personal history and a tool for giving new meaning to our lived experiences.

Revisiting a family album —or reconstructing it if it has been lost— is not merely an intimate gesture. It is a profoundly communal act, as it places us within a system, a network, a shared territory. Recognizing our roots allows us to feel part of something greater: a family, a community, a shared story. And in times of loss or catastrophe, like the one experienced in Catarroja, that sense of belonging can become emotional support and collective strength.

This is the heart of Re-generem l’àlbum familiar: not just recovering photos, but also restoring bonds, memories, and a sense of community. Creating new images together allows us to tell our stories from where we are today — from what we need to remember and pass on.

In this same spirit, projects like Salvem les fotos (led by the Universitat Politècnica de València, which is collaborating in this event with two activities) illustrate the immense potential of photography as a tool for symbolic healing and community connection. Through the recovery, restoration, and re-signification of damaged images, this project reminds us that every saved photograph is also a rescued story, a reaffirmed identity, and a memory that refuses to disappear.

In this context, rebuilding the album is not just a personal act. It is an action of shared memory, rootedness, symbolic repair, and collective affirmation. In other words: we exist, we remember, and we belong.

That’s why we invite you to take out your photos — or to create them if you don’t have any. To share them, to tell their stories, to listen to them. To build, with the people you love, a narrative that is honest and real. Because memory grows stronger when built in community, and because an image is always a beginning.

We want to celebrate life, rebuild what was lost, give voice to every story, and look to the future with greater presence, deeper roots, and a stronger sense of community.

The Re-generating the Family Album project will soon host an exhibition featuring the images and stories created throughout the process. This exhibition will stand as a symbol of active memory and a tribute to the strength that emerges when a community chooses to rebuild itself through tenderness, rootedness, and creativity.

This event is designed for everyone who is part of the emotional and social fabric of Catarroja, and especially for the families who lost their albums and memories due to the DANA storm — and who now find in photography a way to start anew. It is also dedicated to older adults, whose family photographs are an essential link to their personal history and to the transmission of emotional legacy. To children and young people, who, by joining this initiative, discover the power of images as a vehicle for memory. And, of course, to the volunteers and neighbors — the quiet yet vital protagonists of the recovery.

Acknowledgements

This project would not be possible without the generous involvement of families, associations, artists, local organizations, volunteers, collaborators, and businesses who believe in the power of collective action.

Thank you for joining us in re-generating not only images, but also bonds, stories, and community.

Related article:

The Family Album of a Neighborhood, Colps de Llum.

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