Sixty years ago, when Argentina was preparing to enter one of the most turbulent periods in its history, The Spanish news agency EFE landed in Buenos Aires to open its first correspondent outside of Spain. Since then, his gaze has not stopped registering the political, social and cultural ups and downs of a country crossed by dictatorships, resistance, tragedies, collective gestures of hope and popular celebrations associated with the great passion that football awakens. That constancy is what is condensed today in “Witnesses to history”, the photographic exhibition exhibited at the MUNTREF, Museum of Immigrationand which covers six decades of Argentine life through the visual archive of the largest Spanish-language news agency in the world.
The images, in many cases completely unpublished for the local public, make up a visual chronicle that goes beyond the big names and consecrated events because they capture minimal gestures, period climates, details that give new meaning to known scenes and contribute new nuances to the collective memory. So, democratic presidents and dictators, crowds in the streets, artists, scientists, athletes and anonymous citizens coexist in a timeline that reflects the complexity and ups and downs of recent Argentine history.
In times of overinformation and misinformation, the visual tour also functions as a vindication of photojournalism and the role of public agencies as guarantors of rigor, independence and ethical commitment. To celebrate its arrival in the country, EFE once again reminds us that journalism, when it is at the scene of events, not only informs, it also leaves its mark and builds memory.
Ideal space
The choice of the Museum of the National University of Tres de Febrero is not coincidental. The former Immigrants Hotel, converted into exhibition halls from 2002is a space crossed by its origins and everything it meant for the transformation of the large village into a cosmopolitan and prosperous city. There, in some way, the photographs on display dialogue with the history of those who came looking for a possible future, in the same way that the agency came from outside to narrate what was happening here and expose it to the world. This intersection between views, territories and times enhances the meaning of a selection that is not limited to illustrating the past, but invites us to question it and reflect.
The tour proposes thematic breaks that organize the experience and where you can see the town in the streets, in two completely different versions. The football enthusiasm on the one hand and, on the other, a demonstration against the policies of Alberto Fernández’s government, which coincided with a new anniversary of the death of José de San Martín and which the photographer Juan Ignacio Roncoroni managed to capture..
There are visual records that impact, such as those from 1985 during the Trial of the Juntas or the presentation in 2014 of Guido Montoya Carlotto, restored grandson of Estela de Carlottocaptured by David Fernández, or the solitary figure of the Argentine Olympic canoeist Sebastián Rossi while training in a pool, in 2020, during the restrictive quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, also the result of Roncoroni’s camera.
Esther Rebollo, renowned journalist and university professor who heads the agency’s delegation in Buenos Aires, highlights: “This graphic series is also a lesson in photojournalism, it is the evolution of journalistic photography over the years. They are all historical and iconic shots, a summary of how the EFE Agency has told Argentina over the decades”
The journalistic work
It is worth clarifying that EFE was born in Spain in 1939 and for more than 25 years, under Franco, he only worked indoors. In 1965 it decided to expand and did so in Argentina as its first destination outside of Europe, when President Arturo Illia ruled here, who a year later would be overthrown by a military coup. Then came the expansion throughout Latin America and, later, the rest of the world. Today it is the main multimedia news agency in Spanish and the fourth largest in the world after Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse and has a huge graphic archive made up of 25 million photographs.
“The main value of Agencia EFE is to have been a reference for the media in Argentina and Latin America for 60 years.. It has always accompanied the main events, this has allowed EFE journalists to tell this piece of Argentine history and share it with the world. It is a pride to be part, in some way, of this process of historical construction through journalism,” says Rebollo.
The essence of photojournalism, rescued in the exhibition, is to expose oneself, to be in the place where the events occur and to witness the events. For this reason, the snapshots allow immediate reflection when in 1973 we see Perón and Cámpora returning to these lands, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel during his hunger strike in 1983, the inauguration in 2007 of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in 2023 the euphoria of Javier Milei at the end of his campaign, the hug between Messi and Maradona, or the celebration in the streets after the Equal Marriage laws, among many others.
“Given the flood of news and especially due to the rise of fake news and misinformation, often originating from spaces of power and even governments or authorities, investigative journalism takes on great relevance. We have to move towards journalism that verifies every fact, that enters into dark spaces from which the powers prefer to keep society away.. Investigative journalism is more necessary than ever and young journalists should understand that only by delving into the facts, going to the origin, analyzing each piece of information, taking the past as a reference, can we tell the present and the day-to-day news much better,” concludes Rebollo on the vital importance of the informative role in today’s society.
Practicing journalism is an essential practice to understand who we were, who we are and where we are going. “Witnesses to history” will continue until March 3, with an interruption in January for holidays and not only documents the past, it challenges it from the present and projects it into the future. In a country marked by ruptures and continuities, this graphic heritage reaffirms the value of journalism as testimony, archive and public service and reminds us that each image, taken at the right moment, is also a way of preserving common history.
Image gallery
