The 26 photographs selected in the contest organized by the University and the association of producers Marjal, along with a sound installation, are part of the exhibition in the hall of the AguaGranada Foundation.

Jesús de la Rosa wins the first prize of 1,000 euros for his photograph ‘Desolation’, and Jesús Gil Corral the second prize (500 euros) for ‘Caseta con choperas de fondo’ (Hut with poplar trees in the background).

The Aljibe del Rey, exhibition space of the AguaGranada Foundation in the Albaicín, hosts from today the exhibition ‘Poplar trees of Granada’, which brings together a selection of 26 photographs of the 194 that participated in the contest organized by the LIFE Wood for Future project, the Association of Producers Marjal Chopo and the University of Granada. The aim of the contest was to highlight the environmental and cultural benefits of poplar trees, a historic crop in the province.

The winners of the contest were announced at the opening ceremony. The first prize of 1,000 euros went to Jesús de la Rosa, for his photograph ‘Desolation’, and the second prize of 500 euros to Jesús Gil Corral, for his work ‘Caseta con choperas de fondo’ (Hut with poplar trees in the background). As for the special mentions, they have been awarded to Luis Ordóñez Ballesteros, Laura Zarco García, Jesús López Moreno, María Mercedes Castro García, and Amalia Jiménez Catena.

Consuelo Vallejo, curator of the exhibition and professor of the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, explained that, in the competition rules, it was proposed to take photographs that represented the cultivation of poplars, as well as its heritage, artistic, agrarian, environmental or landscape elements. In addition, special emphasis was to be placed on the close relationship between poplars and water, due to the beneficial role of poplar trees as a mechanism for recharging aquifers with clean water, thanks to their power as efficient green filters of urban wastewater used in irrigation.

The photographs, completed by the sound in the Aljibe hall, transport the viewer to an immersive sensory and emotional experience,” explained Vallejo. The sound installation ‘Populus (100 minutes of stereo audio in cycle)’, has been created for the occasion by José López, composer and professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music Victoria Eugenia of Granada.

“Rather than from the usual soundscape, which reflects animal sounds or quasi-costumbrist elements that allow us to identify the place and place ourselves mentally in a space, we have approached the subject from another perspective: the poplar grove as an acoustic space, as a volume that, by its geometry, by the characteristics of poplar and its location in the territory, becomes a sound space in itself. The poplar tree sounds and makes other sounds resonate in a recognizable way,” explained López Montes.

 

Professor Vallejo also presented her work ‘Aurum. A walk through the drying sheds of the Vega’, an edition with text, photographs and artistic intervention created in 2011 for the Latent Footprints Project and now reissued. It poetically recounts an approach to these poplar constructions of the Vega, their way of life and the need to make them survive in the future.

During the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the poet Francisco Vaquero highlighted the presence of poplar groves in the life and work of Federico García Lorca, who spent his childhood and early youth among the “musical poplars” of the groves of Valderrubio. “These places constitute his lyrical field par excellence”, explained Vaquero.

The exhibition is part of the seminar ‘The poplar, a source of environmental and cultural benefits’, which was held this morning at the Carmen de la Victoria of the University of Granada, and in which professors and researchers have addressed the relationship of poplar trees with water, biodiversity and ecology, health, landscape, art, history and agricultural and architectural heritage.

The exhibition and the catalog that brings together the photographs and the papers presented at the seminar have been sponsored by the Diputación de Granada, the City Council of Vegas del Genil and the Civitas-UGR Chair of Sustainability, with the collaboration of the AguaGranada Foundation and the Geopark of Granada.

The exhibition in the Aljibe del Rey can be visited until April 14 from 9.00h to 14.00h from Monday to Friday. Afterwards, it will travel to Vegas del Genil and other locations in the province.

The jury of the contest was formed by Pepe Navarro, photographer specialized in architecture and society photography, representing Cátedra Cívitas; Francisco José Sánchez Montalbán, dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, María Isabel Soler Ruiz, professor of Sculpture and curator of the exhibition together with Vallejo; Guiomar Sánchez Ramírez, Ginebra Siddal, multidisciplinary artist with studies in Art History, photography and cultural management; and Alberto de la Torre, architect and populiculturist, representing the Agrupación de Productores Marjal Chopo, as secretary.