Who Owns the Past?

With Jorge Conde and Sergi Opisso

Presentation of the book Who Owns the Past? led by the visual artist and researcher Jorge Conde and Sergi Opisso, creative director, art director and co-founder of Opisso Studio.

Who Owns the Past? is a visual archival essay on industrial memory, which has been rescued from oblivion by cultural initiatives in 17 Western European countries.

Combining documentary photography, photographic collage and subjective, poetic narrative speculation, the work involves the consolidation of significant postmemory from Jorge Conde’s twelve years of fieldwork in 75 European cities. During this time, he explored 140 cases of industrial buildings recovered through various kinds of cultural initiatives.

This publication conceptually and methodologically stems from a larger contemporary art project entitled Estas ruinas que (no) ves son una promesa (These Ruins You [Don’t] See Are a Promise), which was exhibited at iconic institutions such as Tabacalera Madrid (2020-2021), Fabienne Levy Gallery in Lausanne, Switzerland (2020), IAACC Pablo Serrano in Zaragoza (2023) and Museu Nacional de la Ciència i la Tècnica de Catalunya – MNACTEC (2024).

Jorge Conde (Barcelona, 1968) is a visual artist and researcher. A Fine Arts graduate from the Universitat de Barcelona, he received his training in music and visual arts at the University of California, San Diego, USA, and in film at the National Film and Television School in London. He has been an artist-in-residence at both the Spanish Academy in Rome and Chelsea College of Art and Design in London.

His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome – MACRO (Italy), Instituto Cervantes in Berlin, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City (Mexico), Mandeville Art Gallery in San Diego (USA), Fabienne Levy Gallery in Lausanne (Switzerland), Tabacalera and Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, Arts Santa Mònica and Fundación Círculo de Lectores Bertelsmann-Planeta in Barcelona, IVAM and Centre del Carme in Valencia, IAACC Pablo Serrano in Zaragoza, and Museu d’Art Modern and Mèdol in Tarragona, among others.

He has also participated in fairs such as ARCO Madrid, Artissima in Turin, ARCO Lisbon, ArtsLibris MACBA and Art Miami, as well as in photography and visual arts festival like PHotoEspaña in Madrid, IPER in Rome and Remo Brindisi in Ferrara (Italy). His work can be found in the collections of institutions such as Photo Elysée – Musée cantonal pour la photographie in Lausanne (Switzerland), Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (Italy), Ministry of Culture, National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Government of Catalonia, Bancaja-Bankia Foundation and La Tallera in Cuernavaca (Mexico), among others.

Opisso Studio is a cooperative arising from an initiative by Alex Miquel, Sergi Opisso and Sergi Miquel, with Noemí Martínez joining later as a partner. It is made up of a team of six professionals with more than twenty years of experience in visual identity systems, graphic communication, publishing design and exhibition design.

The studio collaborates with several networked teams depending on the size and needs of each project. It has created projects for Air Europa, DHub, Asobal, CCCB, Museus d’Olot, La Virreina, Museu Picasso, Tarragona Museum of Modern Art, Korean Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP), Volkswagen, Barcelona City Council, Telefónica Foundation, ”la Caixa” Foundation and MNAC, among others.