Backed by the Formentera Department of Heritage, the recently-published volumes 5 and 6 of “Formentera” highlight lectures at the 2015 and 2016 Joan Marí Cardona Local Research Round-Tables.

Heritage councillor Raquel Guasch said FDH hoped the new issues and revamped look and feel of the review would “elevate the science around local cultural heritage”. While Covid-19 forced cancelation of the Joan Marí Local Research Round-Tables in 2020, Guasch said the associated articles would be included a forthcoming publication, and indicated an in-person format for the event could be back by October.

The Joan Marí Local Research Round-Tables have historically encompassed a multiplicity of fields, with an overarching focus on the humanities and social sciences.

Volume 5 of “Formentera” features work by Fanny Tur Riera on local teachers and the island’s first schools; Ángel Custodio Navarro Sánchez focuses on hometown efforts to defend the civil law of the Pine Islands; María José Escandell Torres shares findings from an archaeological study of restoration efforts at the Sant Francesc rectory; Francesca Tugores Truyol takes an in-depth look at the work of Archduke Louis Salvador of Austria, and Virgilio Martínez Enamorado gives an update on an Arabic epigraph discovered on the island.

Volume 6 finds Maria Bofill Martínez enlist research on macrolithic tools in reflecting on the lives of Formentera’s prehistoric inhabitants. Fellow archaeologists Enrique Aragón Núñez and Javier Rodríguez Pandozi parse the S’Espardelló wreck in an attempt to unpack maritime relations in the Balearic Sea up to decline of the Roman Empire. Turning the focus to seafarers of the modern age, Santiago Colomar Ferrer studies how Formentera became a base for North African corsairs. Back on land, Olga Cardona Guasch approaches road and easement ownership from a legal standpoint and, lastly, Enric Ribes i Marí delves into the subject of local place names.

2 August 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera

The Formentera Department of Culture is pleased to announce the opening, Monday 2 August, of Nancy-born and Eivissa-based Lila Licciardi’s “Gabinet de Curiositats”. True to the Dadaist tradition, the thirty analog “cut & paste” works of conceptual mixed media in Licciardi’s selection of collages at “Ajuntament Vell” make meaning of current issues by relying on concepts like chance and the absurd.

With the show’s fresh, collage-driven take on the cabinet of curiosities, Licciardi, like the collectors of the 18th century, leans in to the perpetual search for graphic archives and the need to create a cabinet of one’s very own. Diversiform objects, baroque colours, underlying humour and teeming antiques, electronic circuits and bits of old encyclopaedias populate a universe where the past meets the future and reflects on the challenges of our present.

“Gabinet de Curiositats” can be seen at the Ajuntament Vell exhibition space 2–14 August, Monday to Saturday from 11.00am to 2.00pm and 7.00pm to 9.00pm. The gallery is closed Sundays and Monday mornings. A 7.00pm opening has been scheduled for Monday 2 August.

29 July 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera

Formentera’s heads of culture and heritage, Susana Labrador and Raquel Guasch, respectively, met earlier today with department staff and representatives of the International University of Catalonia (UIC) and adult learning centres of Menorca to prepare a local masterplan for culture. The initiative was baked into an agreement struck at a one-off full-house assembly, 6 October 2020, and focussed on the state of local affairs.

Councillor Labrador said she hoped the initial planning stage would drive “multilateral diagnosis of the current state of culture on Formentera and, from a place of shared responsibility, define strategic priorities and future avenues to promote culture locally”. “We want to take the temperature of culture on Formentera”, she said, “to set strategic lines for the future based on what we want to maintain and what we want to strengthen and prioritise”. Participants in this initial phase will develop specific objectives in support of each strategic priority, recommendations for targetted actions, and a list of stakeholders, associations and entities which could potentially be involved in each proposal.

Citizen participation
The Consell de Formentera will oversee preparation of the plan, with principal engineers including Jaume Gomila, president of Escoles d’Adults de Menorca; Sergi Sánchez, an expert in the field; Judith Urbano, the dean of UIC’s Faculty of Humanities; Marta Crispí, the director of the Master’s in Cultural Management, and Maria Morer, a researcher. The team spent a week surveying local cultural spaces and considering future facilities. During that time, they also sat down with and heard proposals from organisations and cultural insiders on the island.

The resulting plan will shape the future of cultural events on Formentera and create a pact for culture with the consensus of islanders, institutions, political groups with representation in municipal government and locally based cultural groups. It will also cement an organisational structure to guide implementation of the Culture Plan and its stewardship moving forward.

28 July 2021
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera