Old Photos of Formentera 

Exhibition at La Mola Lighthouse

Formentera, October 27, 2024

Located on the easternmost tip of the island, La Mola Lighthouse is one of Formentera’s most iconic landmarks. This historic lighthouse, which has served as a guiding light for sailors and a symbol of the island since 1861, reopened in a new way in 2019 following an extensive renovation of the building that once housed the families responsible for its operation. Since then, it has been transformed into a modern interpretive center and museum, allowing residents and tourists to visit its beautiful interior and relive part of Formentera’s history and culture.

This renovation not only restored the space but also gave it a cultural and educational purpose, bringing visitors closer to the island’s past through exhibitions and temporary displays that capture its essence. In this context, the current exhibition of old photographs holds special significance, offering a unique opportunity to delve into Formentera’s visual history and discover what life on the island was like in times not so far removed from our own.

A Journey into Memory

As you enter the old photograph exhibition at La Mola Lighthouse, titled “Un viatge a la memòria” (“A Journey into Memory”), visitors are transported to another era through around 30 black-and-white images that capture the essence and rhythm of life on Formentera between the 1940s and 1975.

Although the exact dates of the photographs are not specified, these snapshots provide a visual gateway to a period marked by simplicity, daily work, and the flowering of a unique cultural exchange on the island.

Each photograph in the exhibition bears the signature of a different artist, such as Helga Sittl, Pere Català Roca, Melba Levick, Dick Coates, and Reinald Wünsche, who immortalized through their lenses the faces, landscapes, and scenes of a Formentera undergoing change.
The display offers a broad array of scenes from the daily lives of Formentera’s residents: from fishermen and farmers engaged in their daily tasks, to the emergence of a bohemian community of hippies who began arriving on the island and left a unique cultural mark with their alternative lifestyle.

Through these photographs, one can glimpse the interaction between these two worlds—the traditional and the emerging—, a contrast that transformed Formentera into a place where diverse ways of life met and coexisted as the island became discovered by more and more people with the later advent of tourism.

Each image invites us to pause and reflect on the past, to view the island through a lens that no longer exists, and to feel how history, captured in black and white, still resonates in the present.

Thanks to the management of the Formentera Image and Sound Archive, which preserves and protects these images in its collection, today we can view photos that the photographers themselves or their families donated to the Consell de Formentera. The selection of images for this exhibition was curated by Xavi Oliver, the technician responsible for the image and sound archive.

Fonda Pepe: The Meeting Point of Two Worlds

In one of the most representative scenes of Formentera’s social transformation, captured by Reinald Wünsche sometime between the 1950s and 1970s, we see the encounter between the island’s traditional local population and the bohemian lifestyle that began to arrive in those years.

In front of the Fonda Pepe façade in Sant Ferran, a symbolic boundary is marked by the building’s central door. To the left, a group of young Formentera locals chat and observe; they are all men. On the other side of the door, men and women with an unmistakably hippie aesthetic.

In this context, Fonda Pepe became a meeting point between two very different worlds that, despite their contrasts, coexisted and influenced each other.

The gravel ground, still unpaved, contrasts with today’s pedestrian-paved street, reminding us of how Formentera has evolved both urbanistically and culturally since those years.

This is an extraordinary visual document, clearly reflecting what the coexistence must have represented for both groups on the small island of Formentera between the 1950s and 1970s.

My Grandmother and My Mother

In a beautiful image captured by Pere Català Roca, we see a scene from rural life on Formentera, an intimate moment between a mother and her daughter… and today, I can tell you more about them thanks to my friendship with their son/grandson.

The woman in the photo is seated on a simple stone wall, skillfully and patiently spinning wool, while a small girl—her daughter—sits on her feet, watching intently. The woman’s expression conveys serenity and focus, reflecting a typical scene of traditional island work in that era.

Joan Escandell, known as Joan Porrasines, grandson and son of the women in the photograph, told me that the scene was taken on what is now the road to Cap de Barbaria, near a house known as Can Lluís de na Pepa.
Joan explained that the photo shows his grandmother spinning wool and his mother, Maria, then a small child of three years old.

As an anecdote, Joan recounts that, in those years, his grandmother had to ask her husband for permission for the photographer to take the picture.
This reflects the customs and social norms of the time, where even small decisions required family consultation and the husband’s permission.

This photo is therefore not only a family portrait but also a testimony to the traditions and social structure of Formentera’s past among the local population, highlighting even more the cultural differences that came with the arrival of the hippies on the island.

Opening Hours and Admission

The old photographs exhibition in Formentera was inaugurated on October 12 and, for now, no closing date has been set, allowing visitors to enjoy this exhibit for an indefinitely… temporary period. As of October 15, the visiting hours are Tuesday to Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and it remains closed on Sundays, Mondays, and holidays. General admission is €4.50, while entry is free for Formentera residents, minors under 18, and the unemployed. Pensioners and students can access the exhibition and museum with a reduced rate of €2.50.

This photography exhibit offers a unique opportunity to discover the Formentera of not so long ago and to learn about the stories and customs of those who inhabited the island before the mass arrival of tourism.