The meeting, organized by the National Water Museum of China in collaboration with the World Network of Water Museums, was attended by more than a hundred technicians and managers of water museums around the world.
After the strong global upheaval caused by the crisis caused by COVID-19, the fourth global conference of the global network of water museums initially planned in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in March 2020 had to be postponed and later cancel.
The pandemic has caused serious problems for water museums around the world and this week they finally met at an online seminar to discuss the adaptations they have made in the face of this crisis. Entitled "Embracing the changes", this seminar has had the positive intervention of leaders of different museums who have explained the most effective strategies that have been developed during these months.
The Parc de la Séquia has been invited through the Museu de la Tècnica to take part in one of the two sessions where these topics have been discussed and where different experiences have been shared. The director of the Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa, Eudald Serra, explained the adaptation at the educational level carried out by the Fundació Aigües de Manresa - Junta de la Séquia, where through 10 educational pills sponsored by BBVA created new ways to reach students who year after year visited the facilities related to the Irrigation and that this year due to restrictions on mobility have not been able to do.
In this same seminar a manifesto was read to proclaim the interests and commitments of the World Network of Water Museums (WAMU-Net) and its desire to strengthen this association and build new tools for cooperation, solidarity and new development. project and training ideas and shared exhibitions.
In 2016, this network of museums was created under the auspices of UNESCO to work and deepen the culture of water as well as improve the relationship we have as a society. Catalonia is represented through two museums, the Agbar Museum and the Manresa Museum of Technology.
Since its inception, the Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa has worked side by side with people who have made volunteering part of their lives. In the words of its curator, Pilar Alonso “The Museum would not be what it is without the involvement and knowledge of these volunteers who have made it possible for the museum today to be a European reference in the world of the cinteria, in addition to explaining the importance of water and the Sèquia for Manresa during its history “.
We interview two of these volunteers, who tell us who they are and what it has meant for them to come weekly to support the museum.
Josep Casas Bardolet has been a volunteer for about two and a half years, now 67 years old and dedicated his whole life to doing business, the last 25 in a small company in the world of sports and services. He decided to volunteer because the activity he carried out during his working life gave him a lot, and he wanted to return a part of it. In fact, it was after a trip to Japan that he realized that all the elderly were volunteering and doing community work. That was where he thought volunteering was an extraordinary thing to grow as a person and society.
He entered the museum through his father, a former textile factory manager who before his death wanted to get to know the museum and one of the machines he had made. After learning about the space, she became interested in volunteering and contacted the curator, Pilar. They immediately agreed to start a collaboration that still lasts. Josep does restoration and conservation work related to wood, of which he was already familiar and liked a lot. But he is also learning to work with iron. The message to everyone is that life must be active and positive, and that we must never lose the desire to learn and contribute to society.
Xavier Ferrer Nogués is 74 years old and had been a water, gas and heating installer. He has been volunteering for 7 years and doing material cleaning activities, greasing machines and many other jobs that are emerging. He volunteers because he thinks it’s a way to reverse some of his knowledge to help the community, he says that brings him a lot more than he gives, and that this is one of the values of volunteering, as well as relating and stay active. She encourages everyone to volunteer as she improves her self-esteem and enjoys collaborating to expand everyone’s knowledge.
From Parc de la Sèquia we thank the old volunteers and the current ones because they are an essential part of everything we do and enrich us every day with knowledge and enthusiasm for our work.
The two entities want to promote this cycle of digital meetings aimed mainly at small and medium-sized companies in the territory
Sustainability must be the essential basis for the future, and an opportunity for companies to help emerge from the current situation stronger from an economic point of view but also social and environmental. The series of online talks on sustainability, conceived by Parc de la Sèquia with the support of BBVA, aims to help give companies tools and ideas by showing successful models that are already being applied.
To take part in the talks, you must register in advance at https://forms.gle/sGDrGEen8Xe9A8KVA or via the website www.parcdelasequia.cat.
Eating km0 food is a good way to start being more sustainable
During the months of strict confinement due to the global health crisis we have realized more than ever that eating is essential, but the food system we have is fragile, some foods come from far away … It seems that this new awareness has made that many people would choose to start consuming more local products.
Why feed on 0 km products?
The Parc de la Sèquia team considers that getting used to consuming km 0 products is essential to deal with Climate Change as the emissions that occur with the transport of food are drastically reduced, to support local producers and to make Bages a living region and to take steps as consumers to become more and more sustainable. We strictly understand as products of km0 those that are produced less than 100km from the point of sale.
What do we do from Parc de la Sèquia to contribute to this change?
From Parc de la Sèquia we offer itineraries for irrigation aimed at families and adults where different producers of irrigation are visited and tastings of their products are made. We also collaborate in the organization of the Tomato Festival of Bages together with many other entities in the region. This festival aims to promote the knowledge and consumption of different varieties of tomatoes from Bages, as well as to make known the producers of the area.
On the other hand, we have revitalized the orchards of La Culla, coordinating the new “Ecological and Community Orchards of La Culla”. A project that maintains the function of urban gardens for family use and at the same time goes further, as it proposes the transformation of these gardens into organic gardens and works to generate a dynamic of promotion of organic horticulture beyond the Culla , incorporating in the activities and formations to the horticulturists of terrains in the district of the Balcony. In addition, the values of respect, cooperation, solidarity, commitment and mutual support are encouraged through collective work between very diverse people.
At the same time we try to offer km0 food, ecological and sustainable, in all the events and activities we organize, often working with the catering service offered by the cooperative mengemBages.
How can you eat local food?
• Grow your own garden
• Shop at local markets or local stores and ask where their products come from
• Buy seasonal products
• Become a member of a consumer cooperative
• Just by wondering where you are eating and becoming aware of, are you taking a step forward?
Pol Farràs, Clara Aguilera
Members of the Parc de la Sèquia team
Manresa preserves the oldest river factory in Catalonia and southern Europe, a first-rate heritage element that is currently celebrating its bicentenary
In the city where you live, there are always a series of monuments that you have lived with for years and years, that you feel like yours and that in everyday life have become transparent. You walk past them and you don’t notice them because they’ve always been there. Rarely have you had the time and the mental state to get into its meaning.
And this happens in most citizens of this city – Manresa – with the “Panyos”, this old factory, which when we see it, we are impressed by its grandeur and the visual impact of so many windows – they say that as many as days has the year. However, we need to take a leap and move from the “foreground”, what is given to us directly, to the “background”, what it represents and means.
And we find a cultural asset of the first order, a key element of the Industrial Heritage of our country, the first factory – which may have this name – that is preserved and that with the necessary corrections can become visitable and be the benchmark of the industrialization of our country.
The documents at hand date the factory to the 1920s. Now it’s time to celebrate the bi-centenary. To this end, two years ago, a group of interested people met from the Museum of Technology of Manresa (historians, technical professional associations, members of the AMCTAIC, municipal technicians, Bages Study Center, Manresa Turisme …..) which started a research project and which has led to the celebration of two very participatory Conferences in which the debate has been very enriching.
It must be said that the factory is already recognized, which enjoys the qualification of BCIL (cultural asset of local interest) and appears in an immensity of texts and catalogs on the Catalan Industrial Heritage. It should also be noted that the City Council has recently carried out major repairs, especially on the roof of the factory, enough so that the structure is not endangered,
In these two years, an attempt has been made to delve into the meaning of the building and contemplate it in a much broader historical context, and to delve into its place within the context of the process of industrialization in Catalonia. It can be proclaimed that this process began in Bages and that the “Panyos” is the oldest material element, a symbol of Catalan industrialization.
The future of this “jewel of the country” will depend on the extent to which citizens understand its value, on the extent to which the Public Administrations (starting with our City Council) are involved. I am sure that the appearance of this monograph in Dovella magazine – in which most of the people who have taken part in the debates are involved, each from their own particular point of view, will mark a before and an after, will mark a milestone from which the future of the “Locks” is no longer a matter of city but a matter of country.
Josep Alabern Valentí.
President of the Association of the Museum of Science and Technology and Industrial Archeology of Catalonia (AMCTAIC).
Vice-president of the Fundació Aigües de Manresa – Junta de la Séquia.
Yesterday the third Technical Conference of the Panyos was held at the Museum of Technology of Manresa. The Conference is part of the celebration of the bicentenary of the construction of the Panyos factory, which has been in preparation since 2018.
The event was attended by the institutional presentation of the Mayor of Manresa, the Ilm. Sr. Marc Aloy, the councilor for culture, Mrs. Anna Crespo, and Josep Alabern, vice-president of the Fundació Aigües de Manresa-Junta de la Sèquia, were divided into two parts.
In the first part, Dr. Josep Oliveras Samitier, professor of regional geography at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, spoke about Manresa in the beginnings of Catalan industrialization, highlighting the role of the Panyos factory as the initiator of the Catalan industrial revolution .
This was followed by the presentation of a monograph in the magazine Dovella dedicated exclusively to the Manresa factory, considered the first in Catalonia and throughout southern Europe. The presentation of the new issue of the magazine Dovella was given by Francesc Comas, historian and president of the Center d’Estudis del Bages and by Lluís Virós, historian and professor of economic history.
Forty people attended the event, where all the prevention measures, mask, disinfectant gels and social distancing between the attendees were complied with.
Next Sunday, the 11th, as part of the European Heritage Days, there will be guided tours of the Panyos factory from 10 am to 1 pm, where you can also purchase a copy of the magazine presented yesterday.
From the 6th to the 11th of October, various activities have been prepared in Manresa in order to enjoy the city’s heritage. The activities will revolve mainly around the dry stone heritage, the Fàbrica dels Panyos and the Basilica de la Seu.
This resonant cultural event arrives all over Europe in October. The doors of monuments and heritage facilities around the world are open with guided tours and various activities to make them known and closer to the public. The objectives: to enjoy this cultural legacy and to make everyone aware of its cultural and social value.
Manresa has an exceptional cultural heritage with many emblematic elements and feels especially involved in this day. Despite the restrictions imposed by the health crisis, the city is offering a very attractive program of small group activities this year.
This year, the activities revolve mainly around three elements:
• The dry stone heritage, declared an Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2018 and of which we have a large number of witnesses in Manresa. To make it known, there is the exhibition “Tota pedra fa paret” in the Casa Lluvià (carrer de l’Arquitecte Oms), which can be visited until October 18 from Wednesday to Saturday from 18 to 20.30 h. On Tuesday the 6th, at 7.30 pm, in the Casa Lluvià itself, there will be a lecture by Jaume Plans who will present the inventory of the dry stone elements in the municipality of Manresa, of which he is the author. And on Saturday the 10th there will be a guided tour of the Parc del Secà, where you can see live the restored terrace system and the different unique elements that are part of it.
As a unique activity, a small ad hoc show has been created with the title “Dry Stone Poems”, which includes a reading of poems by the author Nati Soler Alcaide, recited by the Manresa actors Txell Vall and Ivan Padilla and accompanied by the accordionist Guillem Anguera and the unique sound of the stone txalaparta by TXEK, which will take place on Friday 9 October in the courtyard of Casa Lluvià.
• The Panyos factory, the oldest preserved river factory and a symbol of the beginnings of industrialization in Catalonia, a cultural asset of national interest and one of the first 50 items listed in the Inventory of Spanish Industrial Heritage by the Instituto del Patrimonio Histórico of Spain. As part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the beginnings of the factory, a day has been scheduled at the Museu de la Tècnica with a lecture by Dr. Josep Oliveras Samitier on Manresa on the beginnings of Catalan industrialization. The Bages Study Center will then present the monographic issue of the Dovella magazine dedicated to the Locks. And on Sunday the 11th the doors of the factory will reopen with guided tours from 10 am to 1 pm.
• The Basilica of the Cathedral, one of the most important Gothic churches in the country and the city’s heritage emblem. In this edition of the JEP, on Friday the 9th in the afternoon there will be the conference “Manresa and its county. From the arrival of the Carolingian power to the endowment of the year 1020” by Xavier Costa, doctor in Cultures Medieval and graduate in History. This paper is part of the “Cycle of Romanesque knowledge” that the Cathedral of Manresa will offer on 9, 23 and 30 October on the occasion of the Millennium of the redemption of the basilica.
In parallel to these events there will be the inauguration of the ceramic sculpture installation by Esperança Holgado “Anthropocene (Humans vs. Earth)” at the Museu de la Tècnica, also a visit to Manresa Cor de Catalunya organized by the Manresa Tourism and Fairs Foundation and open doors at the Manresa Museum, Carrer del Balç and the Manresa Cathedral.
This program of activities is possible thanks to the participation and collaboration of different people, entities, institutions and facilities with the impetus and coordination of Manresa City Council.
All activities are free, but due to the security measures resulting from the pandemic, capacity is limited and prior reservation is required to take part. Each activity has its own means of making a place reservation, as broken down in the attached program.
You can consult all the information of the activities in Manresa a
www.manresa.cat/JEP
And the program of activities throughout Catalonia a
http://patrimoni.gencat.cat/jep2020
The three entities want to promote activities related to the world of mathematics, the basis of science and technology, and continue to bring them closer to the public in a practical and fun way.
The meeting was attended by Montserrat Alsina, professor-researcher in the Department of Mathematics at the UPC Manresa; Laia Muns, director of the Aigües de Manresa Foundation – Junta de la Sèquia; Eudald Serra, director of the Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa and Carles Caballero, director of the BBVA Customer Banking Center in Manresa.
The exhibition “Mathematics and Life”, conceived by UPC Manresa 10 years ago and which has toured several Catalan towns with great public success, mainly in schools, was inaugurated on 25 February at the Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa.
With the arrival of the pandemic and confinement, many reservations had to be canceled and visits restricted. For this reason, the organizing bodies consider that extending this course is essential for schools and families who have not been able to enjoy it to do so in the coming months.
The exhibition has several areas that relate the most everyday situations and spaces of life with the world of mathematics, such as our room, when we go out, when we go shopping, or even when we play sports or play. to board games. Among the new features are renewed panels focused on sustainability and digital transformation, at the suggestion of BBVA.
With the desire that students of all educational stages have their place in the exhibition, workshops and activities related to mathematics and science, technology, art … have also been devised.
The exhibition can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm until June 30, 2021. Admission is free for BBVA customers. The program of activities and the educational offer can be consulted on the Parc de la Sèquia website.
The Manresa facilities send a message of equality, future inclusion through a small video that can now be viewed on the City Council’s Youtube channel. In addition, we remind you that the museums and museum facilities of Manresa offer online resources during these days of confinement.
As every year, May 18 is International Museum Day (IMD), the major event organized by the International Museum Committee (ICOM) since 1977. It is a day designed to put museums at the center of attention and vindicate the work they do in the study, preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage of all, but also in the role they play as cultural institutions in the development of society and in improving the well-being and cohesion of the community.
This year, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been decided to keep the day going and make it virtual through technological resources and social networks. Therefore, a safe DIM is proposed for people, technologically open, accessible, plural and diverse.
With the motto proposed by ICOM this year, “Museums for equality: diversity and inclusion”, the International Museum Day 2020 aims to become a meeting point to celebrate diversity and to identify inequalities and overcome the prejudices in the stories that are constructed from museums.
Museums must be agents of transformation and, at a time like the present, they must participate constructively in the political, social and cultural realities of the community. The DIM can become a great opportunity to vindicate the role of museums in these difficult times.
The Museums of Manresa also wanted to be present on this day, sending a message of building a better, fairer and more egalitarian future. Museums are welcoming spaces, where the past and the present meet to reflect on the world in which we want to live. And, in the exceptional time we are living in, isolation must bring back the full awareness of the human condition: that we are part of a community. This message has been reflected in a small video that can already be seen on the Youtube channel of Manresa City Council and that will also be circulated through social networks.
In addition, we remind you that the museums and museum facilities of Manresa offer online resources during these days of confinement. You can view them at:
Museum of Manresa
https://izi.travel/es/64a3-museu-comarcal-de-manresa/es
Manresa Museum of Technology
https://izi.travel/es/df6b-museu-de-la-tecnica-de-manresa/ca
Valentí Masachs Museum of Geology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8HSSFBdSfE
Historical Museum of the Cathedral of Manresa
http://www.seudemanresa.cat/
Cave Sanctuary Museum
http://www.covamanresa.cat
Carrer del Balç Interpretation Center
https://izi.travel/es/1c0b-manresa-cor-de-catalunya/ca
Espai 1522. Manresa Ignasiana Interpretation Center
https://izi.travel/es/790e-manresa-universal-la-ciutat-de-sant-ignasi/ca
You will find all the information collected at:
www.manresa.cat/DIM
The Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa is the first museum in Catalonia to be integrated into the network, where cultural entities and museums from countries in central Europe stand out.
During this month of April, the Parc de la Sèquia, through the Museu de la Tècnica de Manresa, has become part of the Network of European Museums Organizations (NEMO), a European project that was born in 1992 and has with the aim of representing state museums before the Council of Europe, giving voice to more than 30,000 museums in 40 European countries.
The NEMO network ensures museums as an integral part of the European lifestyle, promoting their work and value to European legislators, as well as offering museums training, information, networking and opportunities for group collaboration. of work that are grouped in areas such as digitization, creativity, education and promotion.
One of the main lines of work today is sustainability and the commitment to follow the UN recommendations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the so-called 2030 agenda. The campaign used is that of #MuseumsforFuture and tools are offered to members to help them achieve these goals.
Every year the network holds the NEMO’s European Museum Conference, this year between 15 and 17 November in Croatia, where more than 200 museums and cultural heritage professionals usually meet where conferences, workshops and job opportunities are held. set between countries and facilities.
Together with the AGBAR Museum, they are the first to be included in the whole of Spain
The Water Museums Global Network (WAMU-NET) is an initiative endorsed by the Intergovernmental Council of the Hydrological Program (UNESCO-IHP).
This network created in 2018, calls on individuals and institutions to take urgent action to repair our deteriorated relationship with the most precious liquid element on Earth and operate within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Technical Museum of Manresa, located in the old water reservoirs in the Sèquia de Manresa and with an exhibition dedicated to the history of this canal, is now also part of it.
Today, many water museums and institutions operate in isolation from one another. There is an urgent need to exchange experiences and best practices through a larger network, so that new perceptions and more sustainable management models can be developed for the emergence of a “new water culture”. “. In this perspective, museums can play a key role in water awareness education today, by linking ancient knowledge to contemporary agendas to develop sustainable solutions to the global water crisis.
The medieval canal was presented at the FITUR fair by the Ministry of Agriculture’s program Caminos Naturales
This Friday, the medieval canal de la Sèquia, and the Parc de la Sèquia, as the entity that manages the tourist and educational part, was presented at the FITUR fair in Madrid.
The presentation was given by Laia Muns, director of the Aigües de Manresa – Junta de la Sèquia Foundation, whose trade name is Parc de la Sèquia, and Eudald Serra, the director of the Museum of the Technique of Manresa.
The presentation took place within the stand of Caminos Naturales, a program of the Ministry of Agriculture, which is part of the Sèquia and which works to bring the population closer to the natural environment, promoting knowledge of nature. and landscapes, as well as rural development.
The FITUR trade fair receives more than 142,642 professionals and 110,848 general visitors each year, and is considered a global meeting place for tourism professionals, as well as the leading fair for the receiving and transmitting markets of Latin America.
