Passos Previs: Tony Lara's Decade of Good Friday Preparations Unveiled

The exhibition *Passos Previs* by Andorran-born photographer Tony Lara opened this month at the Centre Cívic in La Seu d'Urgell, showcasing behind-the-scenes images from the preparations for the town's Good Friday procession.

Lara, who now lives in the Alt Urgell capital, spent a decade documenting the event, capturing 4,000 photographs over the years. From these, he selected 134 for the exhibition and an accompanying book. The project began by chance but grew into a major endeavour, highlighting the meticulous work involved in distilling intimate, human moments from a single annual event.

During the presentation, host Carles Gascón noted a local linguistic quirk: in La Seu d'Urgell, the Good Friday procession—known regionally as the "processó"—is dialectally called the "professó." This tradition, one of Catalonia's oldest religious manifestations, dates back to the early 17th century and draws large crowds, rivalled only by the town's Major Festival correfoc.

Lara's large-format prints reveal preparatory scenes that humanise the solemn rite, stripping away the formality of the public procession. Local figure Isidre Domenjó praised the work for desacralising the event, allowing viewers to glimpse unguarded moments of humanity amid the protocol.

The exhibition serves as a reminder to observe surroundings more closely, especially as everyday photography proliferates with advanced editing tools. Echoing writer Julio Llamazares's idea that writing combats oblivion, Lara adapted it to photography, positioning his images as an active preservation of fleeting realities.

*Passos Previs* runs throughout March at the Centre Cívic, inviting visitors to engage with these overlooked stories in a format increasingly rare in digital times.