Notes on Josefstrasse 102 investigates the transgenerational image of Spanish migrant
workers that migrated to Switzerland since the 1970s. Taking the form of a conversation,
the film presents the interviews conducted with four activists and dissidents from
different generations who have emigrated to Switzerland due to different moments of
social, economic and political crisis. Through a montage of images and sounds the work
revisits the place indicated by the protagonists in the course of their conversations: a
space located in Josefstrasse 102, Zurich, which in the 1970s was known as the House
of Spain and served as a meeting point for younger migrants who arrived in the wake of
the 2008 financial crisis.
The film concentrates on the subjective micro-dimension of the oral memories
of the protagonists. It activates a living archive of conversations and interviews with
those who experienced the events first hand, which has been built up in parallel to the
project and reflects on the ways in which political histories and their affectual baggage
are transmitted and inherited and wonders about the value of thoses places that once
housed an urgent and vibrant political life.
Notes on Josefstrasse 102 is part of larger ongoing research that looks into
the general context of Spanish ‘economic’ migration in Switzerland during the years of
the dictatorship, when a sort of ‘national internationalism’ was constituted from abroad.
This body of work aims to investigate the forms of transgenerational political transmission
and its disruption, and to reveal the resonances of this historical period with
the present day, sticking scrupulously to the facts and yet trying to reconfigure them
through storytelling and figurative constellations.