The struggle of the peasants of Montagut, in Alcarràs, was one of the events that marked the last decades of the 20th century in Lleida. A social conflict that took center stage in the media especially during the 80s and early 90s when the eviction of the sharecroppers who worked those lands was made effective with major police actions.

This fight for land is a chapter in the social history of Lleida, Segrià and Catalonia. A part of contemporary history that has been printed analogically in The Fighters of the Earth, a photographic report that Esther Remacha (Lleida, 1965) made at the time for the Diari de Lleida and that last year was incorporated into the MORERA collection. . Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Lleida.

A series of photographs that portray a universal conflict repeated throughout time throughout the world: the dispute for the right to exist and cultivate the land of small family farms against the power represented by large agri-food companies.

In 2022, the Morera also incorporated 292 polaroids from the series El País de Maialusa by artist Àngel Jové (Lleida, 1940). Some photographs that Jové took in 1989 when, together with Carles Hac Mor and Benet Rossell, they traveled for ten days through the lands of the Strip and the south of Ponent and generated the project ‘The country of Maialussa’.

Jové’s photographs, together with a video by Benet Rossell, Lo Pedrís, and a text by Carles Hac Mor, El País de Maialussa, constitute the three-part project of this initiatory journey of contemporary artists.

And following the museum’s commitment to expand the presence of photographic work in the collection, this year the artist Ignasi Prat (Sant Esteve de Palautordera, 1981) has also joined with four photographs from the series The World of the Victors (2012-2014). . This is an archeology project of the Franco regime with the purpose of photographing the residences of the most important figures in the leadership of the different Franco governments.

More formats within contemporary art

The Morera collection has also expanded the collection dedicated to new formats of contemporary art. On the one hand, the artist Marga Ximenez (Barcelona, 1950) has joined with the sculptural installation of Books and Homes created in 2017 under the heteronym of Sergio Galan, where the artist recreates a library that contains some soft books, made of life and recycled clothes, placed in closets. A piece that tells us about older people, housed in residences in an orderly manner, without leaving room for their experiences, without being able to situate themselves and manage the inevitable dialogue with other generations.

And, on the other hand, the audiovisual installation Bernat Pescaire listening to Suso (2022) by Alba Garcia Corral (Madrid, 1977). It is a production in which the programming dialogues with the sound universe of the musician and composer Suso Saiz. The graphics and the generative code become the brushes of the artist who generates an imaginary of overwhelming chromatic richness and sketches that branch out creating improbable figures that refer to the territory where the artist currently lives, the Ebro Delta.

All acquisitions, of photography and new formats, have been possible thanks to the Deposits of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat of Catalonia.