The Eloquent Silence of the Landscape is a photographic project by Toni Coll Tort that brings into dialogue the power of the Castilian landscape and the silenced histories of Francoist repression in the province of Burgos.
The project emerged after a 2022 journey and direct engagement with memorialist collectives and with the Coordinadora para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica de Burgos (CRMHB). It has been carried out in collaboration with the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) of the Solidarity Foundation of the University of Barcelona, within the framework of the commemoration “Spain in Freedom. 50 years.”
Drawing on the census and the map of mass graves in Castilla y León, the author focuses on landscapes where graves have been documented but not yet excavated—places where memory remains underground, and where the seemingly quiet landscape safeguards what institutional oblivion sought to erase.
Toni Coll Tort photographs these spaces without intervening in them or marking them, allowing the terrain, the architecture, and the passage of time to speak for themselves. Each image invites viewers to look with respect, to listen with their eyes, and to acknowledge the dignity of those who still await justice.
Although born from a personal initiative, this exhibition is built in dialogue with the collectives that sustain the work of memory in Burgos. Through art, it seeks to contribute another tool to the ongoing construction of a democratic memory for the future.
About the Author
Toni Coll Tort is a militant photographer. He is President of the Ateneu Memoria Popular and a board member of the Catalan Association of Former Political Prisoners of Francoism.
Opening
January 16, 2026
Espacio Tangente
C/ Valentín Jalón, 10
Burgos
Itinerancy
Following Burgos, the exhibition will travel to other locations. Dates and venues will be announced soon.