The Cabildo of Lanzarote and the Haría City Council have organized a round table in which the legacy and work of the Haría photographer Javier Reyes Acuña will be analyzed (Haría, 1926-2024), coinciding with the centenary of his birth.
The meeting will take place this Thursday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the El Aljibe Hall of Haría and in it, the life and work of the cameraman will be analyzed, who donated to the island of Lanzarote a collection of more than 16,000 negatives that forms one of the most important archives of the visual, cultural, artistic, historical, and anthropological heritage of Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
In the debate forum will participate people who worked with Reyes himself and who knew his work in depth, such as the designer Carmen Corujo, the journalist María José Tabar, the photographer Nico Melián, the artist Álex Dorta and the historian and journalist Mario Ferrer, who will act as moderator.
The round table is organized by the Department of Culture of the Haría City Council, which is directed by councilor Evelia García Fuentes, and by the Data Center of the Lanzarote Island Council, which is directed by councilor Ascensión Toledo.
One of the most important archives of the audiovisual heritage of Lanzarote and La Graciosa
Javier Reyes Acuña (1926-2024) was born in Haría on March 5, 1926 and from the early age of 17, approximately since 1942, he became fond of photography, setting up a studio in his house located in the square of his hometown. Self-taught, he alternated various jobs with the professional practice of photography until 1972, when he abandoned it to work at the Caja de Ahorros de Canarias.
During those almost 30 years of work, Reyes captured the daily life, customs, traditions, and experiences of his neighbors, inhabitants of the villages in the north of the island of Lanzarote and of the islets of the Chinijo Archipelago.
As of 2013, thanks to the generosity of Javier Reyes and his family, the Cabildo de Lanzarote began the work of digitizing and disseminating its entire archive through Memoria Digital de Lanzarote. Its complete collection can be consulted at the link Digital Memory of Lanzarote.
His work has awakened the interest of historians and researchers from all over the world and his photographs have been able to be exhibited on his native island on repeated occasions, in addition to on other Canary Islands, such as Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma, and outside the archipelago, in places such as Azores (São Miguel), Cape Verde (Santiago) and Madeira (Ponta do Sol).
In the year 2023 he was named Favorite Son of Haría by the full council of the City Council of the northern town. He passed away in Haría on February 21, 2024 at 97 years of age.
New edition of the book “Javier Reyes. The artisan gaze”
Simultaneously, the Publications Service of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, which also depends on councilor Ascensión Toledo, has announced the re-edition of the book “Javier Reyes. The artisan gaze”, which compiles a selection of the author's best snapshots and texts by the professor of History of Photography at ULL Carmelo Vega, by photographer Carlos Schwartz and by Mario Ferrer himself. This re-edition, of 300 copies, is financed by the Data Center of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, on which the Digital Memory of Lanzarote project depends.
