From Photographic Social Vision, Silvia Omedes and her team work for the defense of documentary photography and photojournalism as a tool to understand the world and promote social change. We met at the headquarters of the Photographic Foundation, an unusual and cozy house with a garden, in the Via Augusta. We talked for a while about photography, photobooks, authors and works, and about the Foundation's valuable commitment. Silvia is a close interlocutor, with an open and pleasant attitude. We could spend hours talking and we would probably still have a lot of topics to discuss.
Independent curator, cultural manager, photographers’ agent, editor, and professor of documentary photography, Silvia Omedes has been the director of Photographic Social Vision Foundation since 2001 in Barcelona. She began her career working as exhibition coordinator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. As a visual editor, she has worked for the publishing house Blume and the magazines OjodePez. She combines visiting lectures on documentary photography in different private and public schools in Spain with the creation of alternative photography projects that challenge our society and shed light and create awareness of social issues worldwide.
She has taught at the Gris Art School in Barcelona, at IDEP, the IEFC, at EFTI in Madrid and at the Masterclasses organized by the World Press Photo Foundation in Europe and Latin America. She has been a jury for the 2015 and 2017 FNAC Young Talent awards, the LUX awards, the POY Latam awards and the 2020 Luis Valtueña Award. She is a nominee of young talent for the Joop Swart Masterclass scholarships in Amsterdam, for the Incipiens Albert Camus scholarship and for Leica’s Award (LOBA Award). In 2018 she was Secretary of the Jury of the World Press Photo Awards in Holland.
As a photographer agent, she offers consulting services to both individual authors and collections, providing better management skills and strategies for the professional exploitation of photographic archives. Her clients include the first woman photojournalist in Spain, Joana Biarnés, and the heirs of the Jácques Léonard Family Archive. Since 2014 she is a member of the Impulse Commission for the National Photography Plan of Government of Catalonia.