Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu

The Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu was one of the first museological experiences of its kind in Spain. The gestation moment of this initiative can be traced back to 1969. Two years later, in the context of socio-cultural movement, the town council managed to acquire the Closeta de Gassia estate, the current nucleus and headquarters of the ecomuseum. Together with the surrounding land, this constituted a group of Pallaresan houses. Firstly, the aim was to build a school, but this was not carried out. The group of properties remained unused, which led the town council to put it up for sale in 1979.

The destiny of this heritage complex changed in 1983, the year in which the Cultural Council of Valls d’Àneu was created with the idea of promoting and developing the culture and heritage of this territory. This entity was chaired by a cultural manager and had the support of local administrations. In this sense, the Arxiu Històric de les Valls d’Àneu was created in 1985 and, two years later, the Escola de Natura-Camp d’Aprenentatge. In the same year, 1987, the first ecomuseum project was drawn up, subsidised by the Generalitat de Catalunya and with the support of the four town councils that make up the Valls d’Àneu of the Pallars Sobirà region (Alt Àneu, Espot, Esterri d’Àneu and Guinegueta d’Àneu). This county covers an area of 407 square kilometres and in the 1980s and 1990s had around 1,300 inhabitants, distributed among twenty-four villages at an altitude of between 900 and 1,400 metres above sea level. the 1980s and 1990s had around 1,300 inhabitants, distributed among twenty-four villages at an altitude of between 900 and 1,400 metres above sea level.

The first project had a strong academic accent in a sense that made it somehow idealistic but with a contemporary outlook. However, its economic sustainement was not feasible. Local reality could be based on this vision, but it needed a territorial dimension, something applicable to a local reality. The definitive impulse to the project came in 1988, with the celebration of the Anthropology and Cultural Heritage symposium, where a group for the promotion and research of local heritage was formed at the University of Lleida. In 1991, the Cultural Council of Valls d’Àneu commissioned the final plan for the ecomuseum to two anthropologists from this group at the University of Lleida, Xavier Roigé and Llorenç Prats.

The second project was reformulated in order to include the training of guides from the area, encouraging the transmission of knowledge to the younger generations; the setting up of a farm that would be a new extension of the ecomuseum; the improvement of the headquarters, including a revision of the exhibition and a shop; and strengthening the extensions of the original Ecomuseum that had already taken the name of radials. The new project had to go beyond a simple heritage recovery, it had to go as far as the constitution of an economically viable and self-manageable entity.The first activity that gave life to the ecomuseum was held in 199. It consisted in an inaugural exhibition, under the title: “L’Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu: la Identitat d’un territorio” (The Ecomuseum of the Valls d’Àneu: the Identity of a territory). The exhibition was structured in three sections, (1) Man, territory and time; (2) Integral heritage; and (3) Dissemination, getting to know the Valls d’Àneu. It was a presentation to the community of the social and territorial dimension of the ecomuseum project. In 1993, the first phase was inaugurated, in which the rehabilitation and refurbishment of the Gassia d’Esterri house, the recovery of the hydraulic sawmill of Alós, the church of Isil, and the programming of various itineraries were presented.

Officially, the ecomuseum opened its doors in 1994. In this year, its managing body was created: the Consortium and Board of Trustees of the Ecomuseum, made up of four town councils, the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, the University of Lleida and the Cultural Council of Valls d’Àneu. This formula allowed them, and still allows them, on the one hand, to have cohesion between different entities of the region and, on the other hand, budgetary and action autonomy, something fundamental to be able to establish links with the population and the territory.

The ecomuseum was formulated with a centralised model with its headquarters located in an 18th century building, the Casa Gassia in Esterri d’Àneu. It acts as a museum representing the socio-economic life of the region, and serves as a visitor reception centre and a place of management and administration. It has a series of radials (antennae), which complete and structure the territory :

• The Casa Gassia in Esterri d’Àneu, a museum house dating back to the 18th century, is located in the heart of the old quarter of the town. It is an example of a farmhouse, representative of the basis of the local economy. It maintains its original structure and shows the ways of family life and domestic space. Together with the house, they have been conserved, museographed and converted into multi-purpose spaces: shop, music school and warehouse . In addition, the Itinerari Urbà d’Esterri d’Àneu (Urban Itinerary of Esterri d’Àneu) has been developed inside the village with explanatory panels.
• The Alós sawmill, where the world of forestry exploitation is explained and where the heritage derived from the exile to France during the Civil War and Franco’s regime has recently been put to good use.
• The Conjunt Monumental de Son, formed by the church of Saints Just and Pastor, the Lombard bell tower, the cemetery and the clock tower. Inside you can see the altarpiece, a work of Lleida Gothic art by Pedro Espallargues.
• Ecclesiastical heritage, such as the Monastery of Sant Pere del Burgal, Sant Joan d’Isil, Sant Julià d’Unarre, Sant Pere de Burgal and Santa Maria d’Àneu.
• La Formatgeria de la Roseta de Gavàs. This cheese factory is a global project for the production of local cheeses where the whole process is carried out by the same entity: raising the cattle, making the cheese and selling it.
• The bunker routes of the Guingueta d’Àneu. Along with the paths of exile, fortified structures from the period of the Civil War and Franco’s regime have been recovered and serve as elements to show the evolution of the landscape and to link other parts of the Pyrenees, as these constructions were built all along the Pyrenees mountain range.

These radials are essential for the dynamisation to be carried out by the ecomuseum, above all, to establish connections with the needs of the population and the different groups: livestock farmers, the tourist sector, the national park, etc. Recently, their scope of action has been extended to other facilities and heritage resources. The scarcity of human and financial resources prevents them from being able to directly manage other heritage resources and spaces, but they give support and backing to institutional and citizen initiatives. Among the latter is the declaration of the “Fallas del Pirineo” as Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

The ecomuseum is currently registered in the Register of Museums of the Generalitat de Catalunya, was one of the antennae of the Observatory for Ethnological Research in Catalonia and of the Centre for the Promotion of Catalan Popular and Traditional Culture, It is a member of the Network of Ethnology Museums of Catalonia, the Institute for the Development and Promotion of the Alt Pirineu and Aran (IDAPA), the Network of Museums and Heritage Facilities of the Alt Pirineu and Aran, and the Network of Museums of the Terres de Lleida and Aran.

The Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu has been nominated for and won various prizes and awards. In 1995 it won the National Prize for Popular Culture, awarded by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 1998 it was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award. In 1999 he was awarded the Ministry of the Environment Prize for his contribution to the conservation of protected natural areas in Spain. In 2002 he received a special mention from the Jury of the VI Pirineu Literary Narrative Prize, for his work in disseminating Pyrenean culture in Pallars Sobirà, and for his collaboration and participation in all media to make it known. In 2005 it was a candidate for the museology prizes, awarded by the Catalan Museology Association, in the category dedicated to projects, exhibitions, experiences and activities and institutions, for the implementation of a heritage and museum project of decisive action in the territory where it is located, for its singularity and the transcendence of its action; a museum framed in its environment that allows to relate monumental, natural, ethnographic elements with the landscape in which they are inscribed. In 2010 it was awarded the extraordinary prize for museology by the Associació de Museòlegs de Catalunya. It was nominated as one of the wonders of the Pyrenees, as part of an initiative promoted and developed by the Capital of Catalan Culture Organisation and Catalonia Radio to select the 7 wonders of the Material Cultural Heritage of Catalonia, from among 100 proposals that aspired to become a wonder of Catalonia, selected by popular vote at the beginning of 2007.

The Ecomuseu de les Valls d’Àneu was born under the direct influence of French ecomuseums. Strategically, and after twenty-five years of activity, the ecomuseum goes beyond the presentation of a heritage, it aims to achieve a dynamic to become a continuous observer of the territory, capable of participating in local and global projects, working the local from the global. At present, its strategic line is to become a “space of proximity” with a “capacity for self-management”, and not to depend solely on the municipality.