Casa Planas (image and tourism archive, Palma)

Who is / What is

Non-profit cultural center in Es Fortí (Av. Sant Ferran 21, Palma), founded in 2015 by the artist Marina Planas on the archive of her grandfather, the photographer Josep Planas i Montanyà (studio in Palma since 1940): ~3 million photos and negatives, ~18,000 postcards, ~2,000 cameras. It is the great archive of the tourist image of Mallorca (1940-1990): hotel advertising, aerial photography, first photographic and color postcards of the Balearic Islands.

Featured work

• Art Investigation Program (since 2017): artistic research residencies on the archive; call with the Goethe-Institut (2022: 2 months, €4,600 per project).
• 17 artist studios, coworking, cinema with the Goethe-Institut (since 2019) and “ArChiTours” visits.

Relationship with the office

• The postcard and the printed image as a graphic profession: estampers-i-impremta-popular .

History

• 1940: Josep Planas founded his photography business in Palma.
• 2015: Marina Planas creates the center; 2016, assumes the entire file.
• 2017: international residencies begin.

Why is indigenous design

It saves the other side of the vernacular: how the graphic image of Mallorca was manufactured for tourism. Essential to understand (and discuss) the "typical" iconography that current design reuses.

For the project

Archive for an issue about “postcard Mallorca” and possible design residency (graphic/editorial) in its studios; co-edition with Marina Planas.

Photos

 — Photographic postcards by Josep Planas. Majorca Daily Bulletin / «The Mallorcans» (Nova Producciones).

 — Marina Planas in the file. Majorca Daily Bulletin / Nova Producciones.

Sources

• majorcadailybulletin.com/the-mallorcans/news-2/2023/09/14/116915/discover-casa-p
• transartists.org/en/air/casa-planas-creative-and-cultural-centre
• goethe.de/resources/files/pdf198/catala_-ndp-casa-planas-goethe-institut-mayo-20

Working text from the Disseny Indígena knowledge base, machine-translated from Spanish.

Open it in the atlas →