Portal de Turismo de Castilla y León

Dates

3 September to 2 October 2026

When?

Soon

Link

To know more

From September 3 to October 2, 2026, coinciding with the celebration of the IberRadio 2026 national amateur radio meeting in Avila, the Provincial Historical Archive presents Shifted Listening , an artistic activation of the documentary collection of Alfredo Abella Martín (EA1EG) carried out by the Vendedores de Humo collective.

The file

In 2023, the Provincial Archive of Avila received the deposit, with the purpose of definitive donation, of the QSL card collection of Alfredo Abella Martín, a native of Avila, the first licensed amateur radio operator in the province and founder of the Spanish Association of Blind Amateur Radio Operators (ARIES).

Between 1952 and 1991, Alfredo amassed 6,877 cards exchanged with operators from around the world: technical documents, but also an extraordinary visual atlas built from words and listening. From Leningrad to Louisiana, from Beirut to Buenos Aires, from Cuenca to Kyoto, the cards encapsulate the desire of people from all over the planet to present themselves to a stranger through their particular realities. They are, at once, the sediment of a sonic practice and its imprint: the material proof that the contact had taken place. Alfredo kept them all, even though he couldn't see them, knowing them through the verbal descriptions and tactile reproductions made by his family.

The project is the fruit of years of continuous research on the collection and the direct result of an artistic residency developed by Pablo Santacana López (collective Vendedores de Humo) in the Archive itself, financed by the European Union and the Goethe-Institut.

The project

Shifting the focus of listening stems from the fundamental paradox that defines this collection—thousands of images gathered through hearing—to propose an artistic activation in which the archive comes alive through touch and sound. The exhibition is designed to be touched: radio equipment, awards, antenna models, and materials from Alfredo's personal archive can be freely manipulated and interpreted by hand.

A selection of original QSL cards is displayed alongside these objects, as well as plaster casts of the collection's most significant designs, created by students of the Avila Municipal School of Art and inspired by the tactile techniques used by Alfredo's family. The experience is further enhanced by an immersive soundscape that integrates narration and radio frequency recordings, as well as an audio description track accessible via QR code.

The proposal is structured around three complementary axes:

- The physical exhibition in the Provincial Archive of Avila as the central core.

- The web platform [ea1eg.com], which functions as a digital atlas to geolocate and chronologically order the 6,877 cards.

- The trilingual monograph publication —published by Meseta Books with funding from Stiftung Kunstfonds—, which combines essays, archival materials, interviews with specialists and a visual catalogue organized by decades and thematic blocks (antennas, monuments, geographies, animals, ARIES or antipodes).

Dissemination of heritage

In compliance with the functions entrusted to it by Law 6/1991 on Archives and Documentary Heritage of Castilla y León, the Provincial Historical Archive of Avila promotes the dissemination of its holdings to raise awareness, knowledge, and protection of documentary heritage, ensuring that documents cease to be anonymous records and become accessible to the public. Exhibitions are a fundamental channel for this work; in this case, "Displacing Listening" also serves as recognition of the generosity of Alfredo Abella's family, whose gesture guarantees that this archive will be preserved and made accessible to society as a whole.

About EA1EG

Alfredo Abella Martín was born in Avila in 1923, the youngest of four children in a family of school inspectors. He was orphaned at a very young age. A basketball player for Óbila, in 1944 he suffered an accidental explosion from a Civil War bomb fuse, which cost him his sight in both eyes and several fingers. In 1950, guided by his friend Julio López Morales, he obtained the first amateur radio license in Avila (EA1EG1) and set up his station at 6 Dos de Mayo Street, from where he contacted operators in more than 70 countries, including several in the USSR. In 1955, he passed the competitive examination for the ONCE (Spanish National Organization of the Blind) as delegate in Avila, a position he held until his retirement in 1988. In 1967, he founded and chaired PRONISA. From 1965 to 1985, he was the unpaid manager of the Santa Teresa de Martiherrero special education school. In the 1980s, with a more powerful antenna, he returned to amateur radio with force and founded ARIES (Spanish Association of Blind Radio Amateurs), presiding over it until his death from a brain tumor in 1992.

About Snake Oil Salesmen

Vendedores de Humo is an artistic collective founded in Madrid in 2012 by Pablo Santacana López and Marta M. Legido. Their interdisciplinary practice questions the political agency of territorial representations and local archives, articulating site-specific projects that combine research, design, and cultural mediation. They have developed projects for institutions such as Matadero Madrid, PhotoEspaña, Galería Pivo (São Paulo), and Campo Adentro (Uruguay).

Pablo Santacana López (Madrid, 1991) is an architect, designer, and art researcher. He trained at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Faculty of Architecture of São Paulo, and the Institute for Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts, and holds a doctorate from the Bauhaus University in Weimar. He coordinates the publishing house Meseta Books, and his entire family, including his great-uncle EA1EG, is from Avila.

Exhibition venue: Historical Archive of Avila. Multipurpose room. Plaza Concepción Arenal.

Exhibition dates: September 3 to October 2. Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (except public holidays).

Presentation: September 4th at 12:00 pm. (Free admission until full capacity is reached).

Other activities:

- Guided tours on request (email: archivo.avila@jcyl.es. Telephone: 920 22 16 90).

- Presentation of the project on Iberradio 26 (at Lienzo Norte) and guided tour on September 19.