The Formentera Council's department of patrimony announces the creation of a set of guiding principles for Formentera's Arxiu d'Imatge i So (Image and Sound Archive). The document contains working strategies to find,, research, study and spread the images and sounds that make up Formentera's documentary legacy.

The plan's drafting was stipulated in the island's 2017-2019 strategy for management of cultural heritage. Included in the plan is an organisational model for day-to-day tasks at the AISF, as well as recommendations for ongoing operations, priority actions and clear steps to succeeding in objectives, projects and assorted activities.

The two-year plan establishes a vision for the long-term and effective functioning of the AISF. The first part of the scheme is to prepare and vote on the AISF guiding principles. Objectives include cultivating knowledge about Formentera's cultural heritage, showcasing it as an asset to the community, and offering islanders and associations training in order to shape attitudes about cultural heritage on the island.

According to culture and patrimony secretary Susana Labrador, the AISF guidelines mean islanders can expect to see new hubs of culture and art and museums filling out the island's landscape of cultural institutions. Content and resources will be needed if these institutions are to gain currency with visitors, whether or not they actually live on the island. Labrador asserted research and outreach would be necessary to get the new network off the ground, presaging centres of research and outreach which would be lively and dynamic.

When the “Formentera Flower”, one of the most hotly anticipated events on the summer calendar hits the island this Saturday, July 21, as part of this year's Sant Jaume celebrations, it will bring with it a host of performers including DJs Pharma, Blue and Javi Box and Jam Factory.

The real party kicks off at 11.00pm in plaça de la Constitució, though that won't be the first event of the night—that's the “Flower infantil” (Kids' Flower), a party for the island's youngest led by DJ Javi Box and with entertainment by Estrella Llach.

Crafts and sport workshops for young people
The programme gets started at 7.00pm in jardí de ses Eres with an activity promoted as “a workshop of fitness for small children and youth”. Later s'Espurma, a self-styled “school of fun and entertainment”, offers participants the chance to design and put together their own accessories for the evening bash.

Special bus service
For everyone who wants to get in on the Formentera Flower fun without having to get behind the wheel, a dedicated bus service will be activated to link Sant Francesc with other local towns and hot spots.

The line hitching es Pujols and Sant Francesc, and, in the process, making stops in sa Roqueta and la Savina, begins service at 10.00pm in es Pujols and runs every thirty minutes until 1.00am. Every half hour from 1.30am to 5.30am, buses leave Sant Francesc and set out towards es Pujols.

The line connecting el Pilar de la Mola with Sant Francesc also passes through Hotel Riu, es Caló, es Ca Marí and Sant Ferran and makes two evening runs—one departing at 11.10pm and the second at 12.10am. Meanwhile, a total of five departures from Sant Francesc are planned to get residents of la Mola home safe and sound. That service begins at 1.30am and continues every hour until 5.30pm.

Users of the evening's special bus service will be charged €4 for single and €6 for return tickets.

Culture secretary Susana Labrador and Melba Levick held a press conference today to announce the famed graphic professional's gift to the Formentera Council of a collection of images of the island taken between 1968 and 1992. The pair also spoke about the photographer's latest show, an exhibition settling into the gallery of the Ajuntament Vell this Tuesday.

Labrador enthused that the endowment of graphic material was “priceless in terms of historical and artistic value” and a welcome complement to Formentera's body of documentary images. The secretary cited multiple chats over the current legislative session between her and Levick, contact she said ultimately translated into Levick's donation of three hundred colour slides from between 1978 and 1992, plus digital copies of prints made over the four years after 1968—sixty digital colour prints and 26 black and white ones. The Council pledges to study, digitise and disseminate the material.

Dovetailing with Levick's gift is the opening, tomorrow, of Formentera per sempre, a selection of shots the photographer culled from among her collection of images. The show, a joint project of the Formentera Council and Levick, will be on view until August 4 in the exhibition space of the old town hall.

'Formentera forever'
Formentera per sempre. Fotografies de Melba Levick, 1972-1992 is an anthology of work about Formentera fifty years after the photographer's first visit. The island was the focus of Levick's first book and at the centre of a monographic that came a decade later.

The Sala d'Exposicions housed a considerable portion of Levick's previously unpublished black and white work in 2011. Today, the images showcased in Formentera per sempre stand as a sort of shorthand for the collective memory of the place Levick discovered years ago. They are photos which today are also closely entwined with the memories of islanders. Formentera, the birthplace of Levick's professional career, will now be home to a collection of roughly three hundred images she produced here over the years.

The photos that make up the exhibition, handpicked by Levick from among her most celebrated, are interspersed with additional images illustrating the multifaceted process of documenting the island. Levick's unique style of portraiture, often a product of a particular phase in her professional career, is reflected in her eye as a photographer.

Often in her black and white prints, Levick frames shots that are self-contained —reflections, restated silhouettes, windows from which to gaze—, whereas her early colour work showcased the atmosphere of a particular setting.

Melba Levick
Levick set up shop as a photographer in Paris in the early nineteen-seventies. For the first fifteen years of her career, she focused on artistic photos in black and white, images which frequently popped up in shows in Paris, Barcelona and New York and accompanying books. Her work has been published in reviews around the world and her photos can be found in Paris' Bibliothèque Nationale.

Melba has turned out more than sixty books about travel, design, architecture and gardens in Europe, Asia and America. Her first, Formentera (1982), was among the first photographical explorations of the island. She followed it up in subsequent years with Eivissa (1983), Mallorca (1984) and Menorca (1985). In 1993 Levick revisited Formentera, this time including text by Nicolas Schmid. In 1996 she put out Vivir en las Baleares (Chronicle Books), a publication that came with an exhibition, in 1997, at Sa Nostra's cultural space on Formentera. Her most recent work was featured in July 2011's Moments llunyans.

The Formentera Council's office of culture and festivities announce the Sant Jaume activities programme. Commemorations for the island's patron saint, or sant, go from July 10-28. Susana Labrador, head of culture, education and patrimony, touted a “dizzying array of music-, culture- and sport-steeped activities” promising “something for everyone”. Labrador called on the whole island to “turn out in force for Formentera's patron saint festivities”.

Cultural activities
All of Sant Francesc is gearing up for a diverse spread of happenings and events. The programme kicks off Tuesday July 10 with the opening of Gilbert Herrayns' exhibition “Entre la terra i el cel” at sa Tanca Vella. (The show remains on view until September 1.) The following Tuesday July 17, in celebration of Melba Levick's fiftieth year on Formentera, crowds at the municipal gallery will watch as the artist shares an anthropological collection of photos entitled “Formentera per sempre”. (The show will be on display at the Sala d'Exposicions in Sant Francesc until August 4.) That same Tuesday, as part of the outdoor film series Cinema a la Fresca at the jardí de ses Eres, film fans can catch for a projection of Truffaut's Nouvelle Vague classic, “Jules et Jim”.

July 24 ceremony
To mark the holiday known alternately as Diada de Formentera (“Formentera Day”), honorary distinctions will be handed out July 24 from 8.30pm in a ceremony at the municipal cinema.  

Kids activities
On Tuesday, July 24, the island welcomes a fun-filled performance of  “Donem-li una volta al món”, by Xiula. With a title that translates roughly as “Let's circle the world”, the production features a blend of music and humour guaranteed to please young and old.

The kids' workshop “Prepara't per la Flower” (“Get ready for the Flower”) at Marià Villangómez library in the afternoon of Thursday July 19 (and again Saturday July 21 at jardí de ses Eres) is just one part of a broad spectrum of youth-friendly programming including creative workshops, fitness programmes and a face-painting session in preparation for the island's “Flower” bash.

Then, on the evening of Sunday the 22nd, the island's younger music-buffs have Festivart to look forward to. Headquartered at Sant Francesc's central plaza, the event will feature the fusion sounds of Vandoleras, the rap-infused street dance of Imma and Juan Vidal, acrobatics by Grup Pachamama and the hip-hop tunes of Indee Styla. Local youngsters took to the island's youth council to petition for Festivart.

Fitness
Sport occupies an important place in the island's patron saint celebrations, too. Take for instance the tennis and padel tournaments on the municipal pitch from July 26 to 29, or a demonstration, by participants in the island's synchronised swim camp, before spectators at the Poliesportiu Antoni Blanc pool on Saturday the 28th.

Live music and concerts (July 21 and 23-25)
As ever, the heart of Sant Jaume celebrations is the music. “Music and live performances are the centrepieces of Sant Jaume programming”, quipped the secretary, saying the evening's “handpicked, world-class acts have something for everyone”.

The much-anticipated Flower Formentera takes over Sant Francesc's plaça de la Constitució as the sun goes down on Saturday July 21. Then on the 23rd, it's a special, Monday-night edition of Jazz a la plaça to welcome saxophonist and Eivissa-native  Pere Navarro's quintet. Navarro is a leading light on the Balearic scene and a frontrunner for success at both the national and international levels.

Get ready for the singer-songwriting magic of Catalan-Irish Nuria Graham, the unmistakeable sound of Catalan indie-folk outfit La Iaia's latest effort “Tornar a ser u”, and, to cap the evening, the immensely dance-able soul- rock- and techno-inflected pop of Maico.

Sant Jaume's true headliners come through the Nit (“evening”) of the holiday. Gossos is a band that, in 2018, boasts 25 years playing live before crowds. The group has succeeded in reinventing themselves and staying in lock-step with the times. And of course, new sounds are nothing new for La Pegatina, who will dish out material from their latest disc, “Ahora o Nunca”, plus entertainment, adrenaline and good music. La Pegatina have already delivered over a thousand concerts in more than 24 countries.

Secretary Labrador thanked Trasmapi for the transport company's support of festivities and local culture. This year, Trasmapi offers discounted passages for all those looking to join in the celebrations on July 24 and 25. Sant Jaume revellers should refer to the code 2018SANTJAUME when purchasing ferry tickets.

Organisation of the Festes de Sant Jaume programme cost €50,000.