Pilar Aymerich says that, like Robert Doisneau, she never goes out to hunt for photos, but rather to fish for them. “My technique has always been the same: arrive very early at the place where the events will happen, check the light, try to be invisible and then wait.” She also explains that she always carried a compact in her purse at demonstrations and that when the police began to charge, she “put me in a corner to put on lipstick and they always walked past me.” “I have replaced strength with delicacy”, confesses the great photographer of the social movements of the 70s and 80s in Catalonia. She now brings together 50 years of snapshots, iconic portraits, memories and the occasional intimate confession in ‘The Barcelona of Pilar Aymerich’ (Comanegra, in bookstores today). She also premieres an exhibition, ‘Los vintages de Pilar Aymerich’, at the Rocío Santacruz Gallery.
How has it been the experience of bringing together 50 years of Photography in a book?
All of us who dedicate ourselves to photography have a possessive side. Over the years, you end up having drawers full of photos of people you have loved. You also realize that you have made a piece of country history. It happened to me with those who returned from exile, I was lucky to be able to portray them. Most of them disappeared shortly after.
Do you have a favorite photograph?
It has been exciting to meet again with Montserrat Roig, Fabià Puigserver and the three deportees from the Nazi camps: Ferran Planes, Joan Pagès and Joaquim Amat-Piniella. When I made them pose in a row, as if in the field, their faces changed completely in just a few seconds. I felt bad for putting them through that pain, but I think the photo speaks for itself of the enormous suffering that resurfaced 40 years later. The photograph of Montserrat pregnant, resting, while she was writing the essay about the deportees is also one of my favorites. She was afraid that the horrors the survivors told her would affect the baby. If she saw her son, Roger, today, she would be very proud.
He defends photography done with delicacy and done “with a woman’s eyes.”
Yes, they are neither better nor worse than those of a man. But my view is different because I have been educated differently. When you take photos, you are choosing what part of reality you choose to show. It is a delicate job because we play with people. Photography always has some violence, it is an aggression that I try to soften. To photograph you have to be true to yourself and not get carried away by an image that, although it may be beautiful, does not fit reality. It is important to remember that photographers have the power to change reality.
In the book he tells how he learned to develop with his uncle, in France.
Yes, he taught me to respect photography, he worked with color in a very special way. I was very technical and I inherited that: all my negatives are impeccable, I have always been very careful with developing. I came from living in an attic in London, where I discovered what freedom was. I wanted to direct theatre. I left Barcelona very lost, I had no stimulation here, the outlook was very gray. The city was very depressing.
Many of the snapshots she took of the feminist movement in the Transition They have become icons today, like the one of the mother with her little son and the poster with the phrase ‘Jo sóc adúltera’, do you remember that demonstration?
Perfectly. All the demonstrations are like plays, they have a climax, especially if you get inside. I followed that mother and her son for a long time and in the end that complicit image emerged that explains a reality and a moment. At that time, adultery by a woman was punishable by six years in prison, it was no joke.
The image of the Trinitat dams is also very powerful.
I made it shortly after the nuns of Christ the King left prison. They didn’t let the prisoners wear pants or read the press, they censored their letters… it was a kind of psychological torture, they infantilized them. Most were in jail for adultery or having had an abortion. We organized demonstrations to demand female prison officials and in ’78 we got the nuns to leave. They took the keys to all the closets, there were not even sheets. The prisoners managed themselves and it was a beautiful moment to see how they organized themselves in the kitchen shifts, the workshops, the cleaning…
Photography has healing powers, he says.
Yes, it heals because you give someone their identity back. It is something that I saw when photographing the prisoners and I have felt again when photographing children in the Shatila refugee camp, in Beirut. Or portraying the first transsexuals who came to Barcelona to have surgery, like a truck driver from Córdoba that I met in the Venus Dome. She was changing sex and I suggested that she make herself pretty so I could take some photos that were never published because, of course, it was 1979. To do things like that you have to go calmly, let people see that you are not going to attack them and that you are not going to ridicule them. . I always liked to show worlds that were marginal, unknown.
How are you living the new feminist wave?
Feminism deflated like a ‘souflée’ in the 80s and for decades, the only ones who went out to demonstrate were few and old. That’s why I was excited when on March 8, 2018 I saw thousands of women filling Passeig de Gràcia. I went up to the Palau Robert to take a photo because I didn’t believe it. I thought: well, at least all the struggles for so many years were for nothing, there is a generation that will continue. There is much to do. To begin with, don’t let them kill us.
Her photographs of Women’s Days are also historic.
Well, they asked me for them decades later. When they were celebrated, feminism was of no interest to anyone, much less the newspapers. Montserrat Roig always said that when she said that she was a feminist there was silence around her. She felt like a flower when, after Franco’s death, all the progressive and left-wing round tables called her because they needed a woman. They still continue to do so.
Was photography a man’s world when you started?
Yes. But in my case, for example, it went well because the police never thought that a woman could dedicate herself to this. I went to the demonstrations well dressed and made up. They never stopped me and I could sneak into places that a man wouldn’t have been able to get into.
Like at Josep Pla’s house, right?
Yes, that was when he was already very old. Montserrat Roig had gone to interview her and at the end of the conversation, she asked him for writing advice. He looked her up and down and said: ‘Miss, with those legs, you don’t need to write.’ Days later I snuck into his house and posed as an admirer who came to bring him some books to photograph.
How are you experiencing the resurgence of Montserrat Roig?
After her death it seemed that her figure had been somewhat abandoned… but now there is a whole new generation of young people who feel very identified with her. There are girls who call me to tell me that they have read one of her books, it is something that continues to impress me.
What are you missing to photograph?
Many things! I always say I’ll die with my boots on. I would like to photograph the immigrant children because they are the future of this country.
How are you getting along with Instagram?
I’m a disaster, due to lack of time. And because of laziness. I only use one app and it is to view photos and videos of cats, which I love.