La Plaza Grande de Quito: Fotografía Y Memoria

This iconographic research locates the photographs taken by the first photographers of Quito. It covers a period that begins in 1860 -with what are considered to be the first photographic records of the city- until the mid-twentieth century. The objective is to discover the social significance of its most important public space: the Plaza Grande. The study uses photography as a historical document in which different forms of construction of meaning converge and which, at the same time, allows us to know and recognize ourselves, as it visualizes places, spaces, streets and buildings, while constructing and reconstructing history through a selection of images. The photographic records of the Plaza Grande complex are treated as a historical source and documentary heritage to analyze how an imaginary of Quito has been constructed and how the city has been represented. The research reveals how space acquires a social importance and leaves traces, senses and meanings when transferred to a communicational medium, such as photography, which gives shape to a system of visuality that generates a social memory.