Presas

The first feminist demonstration in Barcelona after the Franco regime took place in front of the Trinidad women’s prison in March 1976. They asked that the nuns “Evangelical Crusades of Christ the King” be replaced by state officials, improve the living conditions of prisoners and amnesty for crimes that discriminated against women, such as adultery, abortion or abandonment of the family.

Finally in 1978 the nuns abruptly left prison. While officials arrived from different parts of the country, the prisoners themselves had to take charge of the center’s infrastructure. During this unexpected community exercise of self-management, the photographer Pilar Aymerich managed to enter and document that historic moment.

Presas collects this report, never previously published in its entirety, together with the testimony written by Pilar Aymerich herself, a key figure in the feminist and cultural awakening of late Francoism and the Transition, and winner of the 2021 National Photography Award.