On exhibit: Farmland Reserve, a year in photos

  • DATE: Tuesday, 08 November 2016
  • PLACE: Exhibition Hall [Sala d'Exposicions]
  • SCHEDULE: Monday through Friday, 11.00am to 2.00pm and 5.30 a 7.30pm; Saturdays 11.00am to 2.00pm
  • PRICE: Free

Through photos, Eva Parey documents a year of the Farmland Reserve project, known in Catalan as Cens de Terres de Cultiu

The Farmland Reserve, a project developed by the Formentera Council and the island's farmers' cooperative is aimed at reviving the primary sector and conserving local landscapes.

With the arrival of tourism in the 1960s and 1970s, many fields in the Formentera countryside fell into disuse. Now, with the help of this initiative and thanks to the generosity of landowners who have handed over property to the reserve, many fields are once again being tilled. The initiative helps revive a vocation unique to Formentera, the work of the “pagès” (farmer), at the same time that it protects the area this work takes place, the countryside, with its stone walls, mowed fields and fig trees with their long, propped up branches. Another aim of the project is for local livestock, another keystone feature of the Formentera landscape, to once again have pastureland.

Farmland Reserve (Cens de Terres) is now one year old. Photographer Eva Parey, a specialist in photo journalism, has documented the 12 moons that have come and gone in that time, the phases of a year spent farming, clearing shrubbery, tilling fields, sowing seeds, working the land and harvesting to begin sowing once again ... A selection of photos that reflects this laborious work, the process and its protagonists.