La Fotografia de temàtica escolar en arxius no especialitzats : notes sobre fons en imatge a Mallorca = The school photography in non specialized archives : notes about images collections in Majorca

Abstract

This article is a result of a research work about private photographic collections and non specialized libraries and archives in the public administration in Majorca. The objective is to analyse how many educational images has been preserved and wich is their quality. The article is about the relation between photography and education in a large sense and how the photographers work the image of children at the school.
The work's methodology begin with a previous bibliographic work. From this documentation we enter on a list the private photographic collections and non specialized libraries and archives. Then we design a description card for these archives. The collected images are very different in public archives or in private collections. Every public institution, the collectors and the photographers archives hold different photographs and images according their work and interest.
The collections are formed, mainly, by black and white photographs and, accidentally, by digital images. According the dates, the images are from 1920 to 1950. From the viewpoint of the images content, the photographies are scholars and teachers portraits in individually or in group placed in a conventional way. There are another kind of images represent the students in the classroom or in other school activities. This tipology are minority, but more interesting than the others.
Specially interesting are others subjects like drama and theater, students playing music, in religious events, childrens in carnival costumes, excursions and other cultural activities. Finally the article present an study of two special cases: the Arxiu Municipal of the Ajuntament (Palma) and the Arxiu del regne (Palma). The first archive have political and school architecture images. The second one contain after spanish war photography.
Analizyng the photography we can extrat some considerations about the character, the essence and the processing of photographies. These features are generals in all the photography realm. It is obvious that this character and this essence are common in the professional and the amateur photograph, local, national or international. We can compare these images with another ones in international collections or archives, even in exhibition catalogues like The Family of Man (MOMA exhibition edited by Edward Steichen) or history of photography books. So, we can find similars educational images arround the world.