Why does one decide to create something like the Barcelona Underwater Camera Museum?

 

A collector –either of works of Art, Vehicles, rare Books or Underwater Cameras– is a special type of person, half Diogenes and half lover of culture, who dedicates a great amount of his time and resources to the objects collected. They are precursors in the recovery of our Heritage, who deserve society’s recognition as social benefactors. They usually start their collections before the Institutions and Museums do, so we owe to these pioneers the fact that an important part of our culture has not disappeared due to being buried by Progress.

Obviously not all the collectors or all the collections are the same. There are many types:

The first type are the collectors who start to compulsively “store” different objects of one or more subjects. They have no systematic focus on it. They are chaotic collections, they just hoard attractive objects without any order or guide.

The second type are the people that keep and later collect the objects that they have used in their professional or private life. The collectors know the histories of the objects because they have been a part of their life and like to explain stories about the pieces in their collection.

The third type are organized collectors, sometimes important, who don’t like to show their collections. They keep them just for themselves or for a small group of friends interested in the subject. From a social point of view they are as if they were non existent, despite the fact that they are protecting our Heritage.  In fact they have to mature to be considered members of the next category of collectors.

The fourth type of collectors are, like the others, passionate about their subject who search for objects to study, to repair and/or reconstruct to obtain the original appearance. The difference with the other types of collectors is that they like to share with Society the objects collected. They normally publish articles, organize conventions and lectures, prepare public exhibitions….and the most important is that they show the Ppieces of Heritage they have in their collections to the Institutions and museums (private or public). They could be considered Protectors and Patrons of Cultural Heritage,

BUCaM belongs to this last type of collectors. Its target is to recover all possible historical material for conservation (before it is too late and it disappears) and to perpetuate the memory of the Underwater Imaging Techniques.

The limits of activity of BUCaM have increased at the same rhythm as its collection and the international contacts have allowed it. All the Exhibitions, Lectures, articles, Interviews and other international activities are a proof of it. 

Now we have to make an evolutionary jump: Open BUCaM to the Global World!!!