The Digital Memory of Lanzarote initiative, under the Data Center of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, has expanded its audiovisual collection and incorporated new collections of photography and video. This content has been uploaded to its website.
Among the audiovisual collections, the films donated by private collectors or amateur filmmakers such as the Lamamié de Clairac family, the Martín Rosa family, Alberto Morales, Nélida Brito, José García, or the Cabildo de Gran Canaria stand out. Meanwhile, among the photographic collections, the collections of Jaime Caballero Díaz, Jan Blaauboer, Pedro Siemens, Lucía Guerra Sinsolo, or the Romero Roque family are worth mentioning.
The councilor of the Data Center of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Ascensión Toledo, wanted to thank all the individuals and institutions donors for their generosity in allowing Memoria de Lanzarote to digitize and disseminate these funds, "because this will allow these historical archives of the islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa to be preserved, which in turn will facilitate and help to better understand our past and our recent history," said the councilor.
New films and home videos
Regarding the films and home videos recently incorporated into the collection of Digital Memory of Lanzarote, numerous references from private owners and public institutions have been added, which Digital Memory of Lanzarote has been responsible for digitizing and documenting. Many of them are in Super 8 mm format, although there are also more recent ones in VHS format.
With respect to private collections, these have increased considerably thanks to donations from individuals such as the Lamamié de Clairac Family (with recordings from the late 1950s), the Martín Rosa family, Alberto Morales, José García, Nélida Brito, or Jaime Caballero Díaz, the Tenerife photographer mentioned above in the photographic collections, who also made a documentary during his visit to the island in 1970.
Among the collections donated by public institutions, the ones donated by the Audiovisual Culture Center of Gran Canaria, belonging to the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, and institutional videos of the Cabildo de Lanzarote itself stand out, which include, among other things, recordings of cultural events, institutional events, or popular pilgrimages.
Important photographic collections
Among the many photography collections that have been uploaded, the collection of Jaime Caballero Díaz (1911-1975) stands out, a Tenerife amateur photographer who visited the island in 1970 and made an album of slides and a film in Super 8 mm, both titled "Lanzarote. The island of the 100 volcanoes". The collection belongs to the family archive of Cristina Caballero Arriaga.
Two collections of photographs by the amateur photographer from Gran Canaria of German origin Pedro Siemens (Westphalia, Germany, 1939) have also been incorporated, who was in Lanzarote in 1969 and in La Graciosa in 1979.
Similarly, the photos that the Dutch citizen Jan Blaauboer (1903-1982) took during his visit to Lanzarote and La Graciosa between 1952 and 1954 are now part of the website, although the exact date is unknown. These photos belong to the Blaauboer-Rodríguez Castillo collection that is kept in the General Archive of La Palma.
Finally, numerous private collections of different Canarian collectors who worked on films shot in Lanzarote, and on other islands, by the German filmmaker Rainer Erler (1933-2023) have been added to the archive of Digital Memory of Lanzarote. The collections are those belonging to the Romero Roque family, Eugenio Tacoronte Morales, or Lucía Guerra Sinsolo, who worked in the production or even as actors in films such as The Last Vacation (1975), Operation Ganymede (1977), Plutonium (1978) or The Spring (1979).
How to collaborate with Digital Memory of Lanzarote?
Digital Memory of Lanzarote is a public service of the Cabildo de Lanzarote whose main objective is to locate, recover, digitize and disseminate the audiovisual and documentary heritage of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. Its ultimate purpose is to contribute to preserving, disseminating and investigating the recent past of the islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
Digital Memory of Lanzarote is responsible for digitizing all the files of individuals free of charge, returns the originals to their owners and gives them a digitized copy in high resolution.
To contact Memoria de Lanzarote you can write an email to memoria@cabildodelanzarote.com; you can contact through WhatsApp or by calling the phone number 620 145 820; or by calling the landline 928 810 100 (ext 3006).
Links with some of the videos cited in the press release: