The archaeologist Juan Francisco Navarro Mederos will give next Tuesday, November 3, 2026, at 7:00 p.m., in the Plenary Hall of the Cabildo of La Gomera, in San Sebastián, the conference Archaeologist Luis Diego Cuscoy and his portrait of the Canary Islands (1934-1980). The intervention will review the different facets of Cuscoy and its view on society, culture and the territory of the Archipelago.
La Gomera hosts today, Tuesday, November 3, a program dedicated to the legacy of Luis Diego Cuscoy, with the opening of a photographic exhibition and a conference by archaeologist Juan Francisco Navarro Mederos. The activities, promoted by the Department of Universities, Science and Innovation and Culture and the Cabildo of La Gomera, will allow you to get closer to your view of society, culture and the territory of the Archipelago.
The day will begin at 6:00 p.m. at Casa Colón, in San Sebastián de La Gomera, with the opening of the exhibition Archeology of the Gaze, from the Luis Diego Cuscoy Photographic Archive. Next, at 7:00 p.m., the Plenary Hall of the Cabildo will host the conference Archaeologist Luis Diego Cuscoy and his portrait of the Canary Islands (1934-1980), given by Navarro Mederos.
Luis Diego Cuscoy (1907-1987) is one of the most prominent figures in Canarian archaeology. His career also covered poetry, teaching, educational theory, journalism, ethnography, anthropology and photography. This diversity of interests made him an attentive observer of the cultural life of Tenerife and the Canary Islands and the transformations of his time.
The conference will focus on the portrait of the islands that he left behind through his studies, journalistic articles and photographs. Among the issues that aroused his interest were the changes in the territory linked to the economic model, the situation of rural communities and children, and traditional activities in the process of disappearing, such as herding and pottery.
As an archaeologist, Cuscoy focused much of his research on the Guanches of Tenerife, although he also worked in La Palma and El Hierro and, to a lesser extent, in La Gomera, in addition to carrying out occasional actions in Lanzarote.
Juan Francisco Navarro Mederos is an archaeologist and retired professor from the University of La Laguna. He has carried out research throughout the Canary Islands, especially in La Gomera, on territorial archaeology, rock art, sacrificial altars, cultural sequences, contact archeology and the history of archeology and heritage. Its work also includes the documentation and enhancement of cultural heritage.
Together with Miguel Ángel Clavijo Redondo and other collaborators, he has studied and disseminated the work of Luis Diego Cuscoy through the classification and publication of his writings, recordings and photographs. Among these works is Archeology of the gaze: the photographic work of Luis Diego Cuscoy (2019). Navarro also cataloged his photographic collection and curated, along with Mayte Enríquez, the exhibition of the same name.
