Their Majesties the King and Queen have visited the 'Salvem les Fotos UPV / Recuperar las memorias' (Save the Photos UPV / Recover the Memories) project.

Their Majesties the King and Queen have today visited the 'Salvem les Fotos UPV / Recuperar las memorias' project. This initiative has enabled the recovery, conservation and restitution of family photographs damaged by the DANA that affected the province of Valencia on 29 October 2024. The project is part of the initiatives launched just a few days after the DANA by the Xarxa d'Universitats Públiques Valencianes per a la Cultura (Network of Valencian Public Universities for Culture), together with the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Spanish Conservation Group (GE-IIC) and the Valencia Museum of Ethnology (L'ETNO).

The UPV initiative, led by the Institute for Heritage Restoration and the Faculty of Fine Arts, has enabled the recovery, conservation and restoration of nearly 340,000 family photographs damaged by the DANA (around 3,000 albums from 400 families).

King Felipe and Queen Letizia visited the laboratories of the Faculty of Fine Arts, where the UPV team has been working since 4 November 2024, and learned about the work carried out over these months from the project coordinators, Esther Nebot Díaz, Pilar Soriano Sancho and Pedro Vicente-Mullor.

They also visited the project exhibition, which will remain open until 31 January in the Josep Renau Hall of the UPV Faculty of Fine Arts.

During their visit, they were accompanied by the rector of the Universitat Politècnica de València, José E. Capilla; the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant; the president of the Valencian Regional Government, Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca; and the mayor of Valencia, Mª José Catalá, among other authorities.

More than 200 people

The UPV project was launched by students from the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage Department and the Faculty of Fine Arts. Just fifteen days before the flooding caused by the DANA, they had finished their classes on Photography Conservation in the Master's Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage. They volunteered in the affected areas and saw the albums in the rubbish. 'At that moment, they thought of helping with what they had been trained to do: photograph restoration,' explain the project coordinators Esther Nebot Díaz, Pilar Soriano Sancho and Pedro Vicente-Mullor. By 4 November 2024, the laboratory was already in full swing.

Since then, more than 200 people have participated in the UPV project, including conservators and restorers, photographers, experts in documentation and digitisation, artificial intelligence, students, and volunteers, in a collective heritage rescue effort. All of them share a common goal: to save the memories from the mud, to recover the memories and experiences behind each of the photographs that arrived at the laboratory of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universitat Politècnica de València.

Aline Dieterlen Cuervo is one of the student volunteers who has been involved in the project from the outset. She remembers the tough times. 'We spent all day there, and when we got home, we felt down.' They didn't want to break down when the people affected handed over their photos, but at home, they needed to let off steam. She remembers the exhaustion, the shifts and the endless hours. But all the effort is worth it when you hear, 'after the birth of my son, this is the best gift I have ever received'. These were the words of one of those affected when he collected his restored photos, just the day before his birthday.

'A restorative project'

"They were photos with great value for all of us, of our wedding, our daughters' communions, family gatherings, trips... unforgettable moments in our lives. For us, being able to recover them, knowing that each of those memories had not also been destroyed by the DANA, was wonderful, restorative. That's why we can only express our gratitude to all the people who participated in the recovery of each of our photos," explained Ignacio, Amparo and Marcos, three members of a family from Paiporta whose house was flooded up to almost the second floor, with the water sweeping away everything in its path.

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