Photography Exhibition
‘Horta i tradició’ (Part 2)
The Rice Harvest
Lucía Alcantud Cantero
In recent years, the Port of Catarroja has hosted the rice-harvest festival organised by the Regulatory Council of the Valencia Rice Designation of Origin. Held in September as part of the patron-saint festivities, the event brings the old practices of harvesting and threshing rice back to the marshland fields around the port, alongside live demonstrations by leading chefs.
Smoke Signals
Manu Jaime
Delight
Marina Fuster Rico
The rice-growing marshes of El Palmar, carefully tended and watered by channels from L’Albufera, are our source of rice—the essential ingredient in the delicious Valencian paellas we enjoy.
Roots
Marianela Sánchez
Valencia’s market-garden landscape awakens the poetry and defiance of life on the land. Here, human and natural alchemy merge in an act of resistance and freedom: a celebration of the beauty and defiance of friends who sow dreams in this fertile soil.
Farming
Montse Vallés Grau
Farming: cultivating market gardens and landscape.
Speed
Nacho Errando
This is one of the first photographs I ever took. Every day I cycled home from Sagrado Corazón school in Godella through the market gardens. Those journeys were the start of many thoughts and adventures. During my teenage years I experienced almost everything there: I cried, kissed, stole, made friends and became angry. Once, while I was stealing oranges from a field, the farmer saw me. Instead of becoming angry, he gave me a bag of oranges and told me to ask him next time. This was his motorcycle, an old Mobylette—a vehicle that lets you travel but makes you slow down and think twice.
Drawn to Fire
Ricardo Pintoret, in collaboration with Alboraia’s Història Viva group
A view of the burning of tiger-nut foliage. After summer, once the foliage is completely dry, it is removed so that the tubers can be harvested more easily. Fire appears as both the beginning and the end of the tiger-nut cycle. Farmers keep it carefully controlled, while onlookers are struck by the spectacle by day or night. The rhythm of the flames suggests the power of rebirth from the ashes: a comforting fire.
Among Farmhouses
Ricardo Pintoret, in collaboration with Alboraia’s Història Viva group
An indirect view of one of the most beautiful farmhouses in Alboraia’s market gardens, in the Savoia area. Or is the subject really looking at another farmhouse directly ahead? The well-ploughed field, like a fresh canvas, gleams in the light of sunset.
Resilient Memories
Sabrina Ayelen Fonseca
Archaeological work wrapped in mirages,
gathering traces that stories set free.
Contested spaces scented with resistance.
Unwanted, intrusive changes
yet deemed essential at national level.
That motorway devoured Vera’s market gardens.
Expansion beheaded the Forn de Barraca.
The road divided La Punta.
An intrusion into Valencia’s life.
A wound healed through the exercise of memory.
The determination not to repeat history,
to build awareness for the future and love for what is ours.
‘L’horta és vida’—the market gardens are life—and this must not be forgotten.
Burning Tiger-Nut Straw
Stefan Beyer
Photograph taken during the 2022/23 tiger-nut season. In winter, the straw is traditionally burned in preparation for harvesting the tubers.
Native of the Market Gardens
Stefan Beyer
The fields around Alboraia are home to a colony of semi-feral cats that know how to take advantage of human activity.
The farmer works tirelessly, sowing life and cultivating dreams
Teresa Lurbe