A Tour of the Old Collection of the Instituto Mora Library in Images - Talk on the historical and visual collection.
On September 26, 2025, Instituto Mora in coordination with the II International Art Festival Rios de Color and Endorphine Art School are honored to present the simultaneous conference by maestro Ramón Aureliano Alarcón, who will delight with the talk:
"A Tour of the Old Collection of the Instituto Mora Library in Images".
The talk will take place in Room 5 at the Poussin venue starting at 14:00.
Everyone interested is cordially invited.
It will be extremely enriching to listen to this great personality of art and culture.
Admission is completely free.
Dates
September 26, 2025
Schedule: 2 hours, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Every library was, is, and will be, as long as it survives, a project of individual or collective reading.
The Instituto Mora library is a 'mixed' library, with a historical collection and an Old Collection with works ranging from the 16th century to the 1920s.
The collection covers historical, political, legal, administrative, economic, scientific, medical, literary, musical, religious, and artistic topics, mainly about Mexico and Latin America, in more than 11,945 volumes.
Level: All levels
Content
1. Introduction to the talk and context of the Old Collection.
2. Visual tour of significant works from the historical collection.
3. Reflection on the value of images and their impact on visual culture.
4. Space for questions and dialogue with the audience.
Register
The images included in these publications can be a window to approach the miraculum mundi, the world of printed or manuscript books.
The act of seeing helps us delve into the material structure of prints and observe their textual values, contexts, and manufacturing processes.
This talk offers a 'bird's-eye' tour of the old collection in images, representing possible taxonomies of the visual and iconographic network of works from the 15th to 19th centuries, of interest to visual artists and the general public.
Learn more about Ramón Aureliano Alarcón
Ramón Aureliano Alarcón
Ramón Aureliano Alarcón studied History at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at UNAM. He is currently an Associate Academic Technician “C” at the Ernesto de la Torre Villar Library of the Instituto Mora, where he has worked for over 34 years and is part of the special projects team.
He has worked in the organization and classification of libraries, such as at the Fundación Rafael Preciado A.C., and in other library extension activities and as a reference librarian.
He has also been involved in documentary and iconographic research at the Museo de Historia Natural de la Ciudad de México in the Research and Collections Subdirectorate from 1998 to 2002.
He has supported graphic selection for various publications, books, magazines, posters, videos, etc., and is an iconographic collaborator for the magazine Bicentenario: el ayer y hoy de México, a publication of the Instituto Mora since 2008.
He supports editorial coordination for “De todo… platicadito” in the Colección de Divulgación del Conocimiento of the Instituto Mora (since November 2023) and was a collaborator for the magazine Ciencias of the Faculty of Sciences at UNAM for over 20 years.
He is a member of the seminar DEL SCRIPTORIUM AL OBRADOR at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliotecológicas y de la Información (UNAM), which analyzes the value, function, representation, meaning, and cultural practices of written and visual objects in past societies from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the circulation of knowledge from production, control, circulation, censorship, compilation in repositories (archives and libraries) to their use, exploitation, and transmission between generations (2018 to present).
