Memória, cultura e patrimônio nos 100 anos do Colégio Centenário: registros e arquivos fotográficos

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the elements of memory, culture, and heritage in photographic records of Colégio Centenário. Through this, we seek to emphasize the importance of the composition, organization, and maintenance of Colégio Centenário’s photographic archive as a way to preserve the cultural heritage and safekeep the memories of the institution over the years. The school lost all of its collections after a fire accident in 2007. Although still in full operation, it was necessary to organize the photographic heritage in such a way as to include its temporal, cultural, and historical references, especially the oldest ones. Colégio Centenário follows a humanist philosophy that was born in the Methodist movement in England. The school was founded in 1922, by American Methodist missionaries who, through the principles of the Methodist Church, sought to meet the spiritual, intellectual, cultural, social, and material demands of society. It is understood that the construction of an archive, and later the production of a selective catalog, will give visibility its presence as a historical institution in the center of Rio Grande do Sul. For that purpose, we approached archive organization as well as a research-oriented methodology that was characterized as exploratory, descriptive, and qualitative. The literature review proves that through the composition and organization of the archive it is possible to recall the main moments of Colégio Centenário as a historical and cultural heritage through the photographic records.