Sandra Balsells, photojournalist. A new portrait for my project, which has now a new title: Barcelona, retrats de proximitat (Barcelona, portraits of proximity)

When I started to look for information about Sandra, whom I did not know, I found the documentary Retrats de l’ànima (Portraits of the Soul), and what was meant to be a quick search, turned into an intense hour of attentive viewing of this impacting document, which literally left me in a state of shock. The next day I bought her magnificent book Balkan, in memoriam and a week later I was portraying her in her cosy flat at the Eixample neighbourhood. Sandra speaks - and listens - with captivating passion. I tell her that, to me, the photograph she took in 1993 of Amra Efica, the girl wounded by a bombing in Mostar, is one of the most tragically beautiful images I have ever seen. She explains to me how she took it in a basement lit only by a candle. How she had to figure out and shoot just the right photos, because she only had one film left, after three days of being held with other journalists and the Spanish blue helmets as human shields by the people of Mostar. Ten years later, Sandra returned to Mostar in search of the protagonists of her war photographs, and above all in search of Amra, without even knowing if she was alive. This is one of the moving stories in Retrats de lànima, which I highly recommend and which can be seen on sandrabalsells.com website.
We also talked about the times of analogue photography, the pleasure of working in the lab, and some of her references, such as Enrique Meneses, Cristina García Rodero and Rafael Sanz Lobato, which she has on her walls.
What a privilege to have shared this time with such an exceptional person. I would gladly have stayed all day.

> Sandra Balsells has a degree in journalism from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a postgraduate degree in photojournalism from the London College of Printing. In 1991, she covered the outbreak of war in Croatia as a freelance contributor to the British newspaper The Times. Between 1991 and 2000, much of her photographic work has focused on the Balkans. In addition, she has also shot numerous reports in Israel, Palestine, Mexico, Romania, Canada, Cuba, Mozambique, Haiti and Sicily. She is the author of the book Balkan in memoriam, and co-author of the books Montreal Metropole vue par 30 grands reporters and Latidos de un mundo convulso. In the television field, she is co-author of the documentaries Dying for the Truth and Retrats de l’ànima, and in 2006 she won the Ortega y Gasset Award for Best News Reporting for her work on the war and post-war period in the former Yugoslavia. In recent years, she has curated the projects Topografía de la ira, Desaparecidos and Antología, the latter two by the photojournalist Gervasio Sánchez, with whom she co-directs the Albarracín Photography and Journalism Seminar.
Since 1995 he has combined his work as a photojournalist with teaching photography at the Universitat Ramon Llull.
Her career is reflected in the RTVE programme Detrás del instante: Sandra Balsells.

Sandra Balsells web site

One more portrait for "Barcelona valors afegits": Photojournalist Anna Surinyach

Who, what, when, where, why. These 5 questions are the basis of journalism. These are questions that do not admit a yes or no as an answer, but rather an explanation, and they form the title of 5W, the great magazine of which Anna Surinyach is co-founder and graphic editor.
We talk about her photojournalistic work focused on people who have been forced to leave their countries because of violence: any kind of violence. She has done work using the material that these people have recorded on their cell phones, which at the end helps us to have another point of view, a more complete image, different from those showing people piled up in dinghies, to which we are already, unfortunately, too used to.
Anna has just returned from Bucha, in Ukraine, where she has been documenting the witnesses of the survivors, who are the ones who can give a more direct testimony of how they have lived all that is happening.

Anna Surinyach is a photojournalist and graphic editor of Revista 5W. She has also worked with other national and international media. The main area of her work as a photojournalist is migration around the world. She has coordinated projects like Tierra sin ellas, winner of the 2019 Desalambre Prize, and Éxodos, with Doctors without Borders. She has made two short documentaries: Misbah, with Revista 5W, and #Boza with the visual artist Severine Sajous. Her photographs have been exhibited in several cities, among them Buenos Aires, Montevideo, San Francisco, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid.

Anna Surinyach website

Actress Laura Aubert, new portrait for "Barcelona, valors afegits"

We meet at el Maldà, a tiny and charming theater in the neighborhood of El Pi, founded and managed by Els Pirates, a company of which Laura is one of the members. They are now performing Els secundaris, an amusing vaudeville inspired by the popular shows of the Paral·lel, in Barcelona, at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite the fact that the show is only half an hour away, she lends herself to the photo session in all tranquility and she still has time to go to the bar downstairs for a snack. On the way, she explains to me, excitedly, that she has just returned from Paris where she has successfully performed, for a month, Oriol Broggi's play 28 i mig with the catalan company La Perla 29.

Laura Aubert is an actress and singer. Her long theatrical career as an actress includes productions such as La Ternura, by Alfredo Sanzol (2019); La Hostalera, by Pau Carrió (2017), or Amor & Shakespeare, by Josep Maria Mestres (2015). She participates in the management of the programming of El Maldà Theater in Barcelona. She is co-founder of Els Pirates Teatre, one of the first alternative theater companies in Barcelona, and was a member of the first generation of the Kompanyia de Teatre Lliure. She has recently participated in television series such as El Crac, by Joel Joan i Héctor Claramunt (2016-2017), or Com si fos ahir, by Sònia Sanchez (2018). In the field of music, she has participated in multiple productions as a solo singer, violinist and double bass player.

Film director Isabel Coixet, new portrait for the project "Barcelona, valors afegits"

I take the portrait of Isabel Coixet in the neighborhood of Gracia, where she has the headquarters of Miss Wasabi, her production company. She's on a tight schedule and she doesn't like to be photographed, so we end up doing an express session. A life-sized figure of Agnès Varda watches over the scene from a corner of the room.
I am left with the desire to tell her about how I admire her work, the delicate intimacy of her narratives, and above all the rhythm, the always appropriate tempo of her films, with its essential silences distributed with precision, as if it was a musical score.

Isabel Coixet worked as a creative director in advertising. In 1988 she debuted as a screenwriter and director with Demasiado viejo para morir joven. In 1996 she traveled to the United States to shoot her first feature film in English, Things I never told you, for which she won the Fotogramas de Plata award. In 2000 she founded her own production company, Miss Wasabi Films. She has shot 25 films including My life without me, awarded at the Berlin Festival 2003 and Goya for best adapted screenplay, The secret life of words, awarded Goya for best film, best direction and best original screenplay, Elegy, Ayer no termina nunca, Mi otro yo, Learning to drive, Nadie quiere la noche and The bookshop, awarded Goya for best direction. His latest film is Nieva en Benidorm.

She has also worked in the documentary genre, with titles such as Viaje al corazón de la tortura, Invisibles, winner of the Goya for best documentary film, Spain in a Day and Aral, el mar perdido.

In 2009 she received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts and in 2015 she was recognized with the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. She received the National Cinematography Award in 2020.

Perico Pastor at Diari d'Andorra

Diari d’Andorra publishes an interview with Perico Pastor illustrated by one of the photographs I took of him last March.

Photographer Adriana Eskenazi, for the "Barcelona Valors afegits" project

I wanted to portray Adriana Eskenazi since I discovered her pictorial work, which fascinated me. Later, seeing her portfolio, I realized that she is an excellent photographer. We met at her studio in Ciutat Vella, a space flooded with light and the nice colors of her paintings. Adriana talks enthusiastically about her work, about how she tries to combine painting with photography assignments, because when she starts painting she can't stop until she finishes.
In 2021 she published Amar, a visual history that she cultivated during the five years of her relationship with her partner.
Now she is preparing another book with the discarded photos of the work she does for Erika Lust, a feminist film director for adults. Those are photos that are not commercial enough for the production company and are too explicit to post on social media. Looking forward to seeing the finished book....

Adriana Eskenazi founded with Laura Encursiva the photography and filmmaking studio eskenaziencursiva in 2010. For several years they worked for production companies such as Canada and Puente Aéreo (by which they were represented until the dissipation of the production company) and for brands such as Aperol Spritz, Tampax, Massimo Dutti, Gigi Studios, Fun Factory, Bimanán, Sony Music... In 2019 Adriana Eskenazi starts working separately as well, keeping her collaboration with Laura for some projects. This independence allows her to acquire a more personal point in her creativity and she explores different artistic fields that she sometimes incorporates in her photography. Among Adriana's clients are Skoda, Oysho, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Erika Lust or the Barcelona City Council. In 2020 she starts painting around the theme of food, making commissioned works and collaborating with restaurants and wineries.

Cultural manager SILVIA OMEDES for Barcelona Valors afegits

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.

Àlex Susanna, writer, teacher, poet and cultural promoter. New portrait for Barcelona V. A.

Àlex and I used to go to school together and afterwards we lost track until many years later, when he was director of the Ramon Llull Institute and we met in a reunion. Now he welcomes me at the Espais Volart of the Vila Casas Foundation, of which he is the art director.
While I prepare the camera we talk about art and artists, photography, painting, the poor acceptance of figurative painting today, how the auction houses have caused the crisis of the galleries, a little bit of everything, in the short time I can steal from his tight schedule.
Àlex speaks slowly, with measured words, with an erudite touch and with the confidence that his impressive trajectory gives him.

Àlex Susanna is a writer, teacher, poet and cultural promoter.
He has been professor of Catalan literature at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, founder and director of Editorial Columna, Columna Música, and the International Poetry Festival of Barcelona. He has co-directed the collection of novels El Cercle de Viena, in Viena Ediciones. Subsequently he has been director of the Caixa Catalunya Foundation, director of Culture of the Obra Social de CatalunyaCaixa in La Pedrera, director of the Ramon Llull Institute and of the Catalan Agency of Cultural Heritage. In 2020 he joined the Vila Casas Foundation as art director.
He holds a degree in Catalan Philology from the University of Barcelona. He has published a number of poetry books, including Memòria del cos (1980, Miquel de Palol Prize 1979). As a prose writer, he has published Quadern venecià (1989, Premi Josep Pla 1988), Quadern de Fornells, Quadern d’ombres and Quadern dels marges.
As an art critic he has published numerous texts for catalogs and articles on exhibitions. Among his translations stand out those of Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry (1980, Serra d’Or Critics' Prize 1981), Quatre Quartets by T.S. Eliot (1984 and 2011) and Cal·ligrames by Apollinaire, and he has also collaborated as an article writer in various media.
His work has been translated into eleven languages.
He is a member of the European Academy of Poetry.

A new portrait for "Barcelona, valors afegits: Clara S. Prous, illustrator

As she still doesn't have a studio, Clara prefers to meet me at the bar around the corner for the photo shoot. I confess that it's hard for me to get into her universe, probably because of generational issues, but I'm very attracted to her work, which I discovered by chance on Instagram. We talk about techniques, materials and art props. She tells me that lately he is exhibiting quite a lot in small galleries and concept stores in the city. She sells originals and prints, and is increasingly in demand. She explains that people say she paints distorted characters, as if they were from Chernobyl. We agree that it is precisely in these distortions that the power of her work is based, which can indeed have Soviet but also American connotations.

"I was born in Barcelona in 1991, and I have only changed city once, and I came back.
I am an illustrator and post producer. I usually spend my days painting in my studio, although if I'm asked I edit a video or collaborate in fanzines and comics. If I'm asked to do some 3D modeling, then I charge for it. As I have a huge complication to express myself in some way, and my virtues do not include singing, I have dedicated my whole life to explore new artistic methods. That's why I studied illustration in 2014 at the Industrial School of Barcelona, and then I did a specialization course in post-production at the Espai School, also in Barcelona.
In 2018 I went to live in Liège, near Brussels, to work in a 3D studio, where I did architectural renderings. The job was good, but it was hard for me to live in -6 °C, to be honest.
When I came back home I decided what I wanted to do always was to paint, and this is what I actually do daily."

Film director Félix Fernández de Castro, new portrait for "Barcelona valors afegits"

I met Félix when he came home to shoot a scene of the film María y yo, and later, in a long ellipsis, we met again at Gallardo's house, a few days before his death. Our relationship therefore turns around our friendship with Miguel Gallardo and we talked about him for a long time, with deep longing and feeling, and about María y yo, of course. As a good filmmaker, Felix likes to explain things in detail, and when he talks about his film, he also adds a lot of passion. You can tell he loves his work.

At the end of the session we discovered that when we were kids we went to the same school, a few years apart, sharing teachers and similar experiences. And in case there were any doubts, seeing the photograph of Martin Parr that he has hanging in the studio, and afterwards when he tells me that yes, the beautiful Triumph on the street is indeed his, we have just connected completely.

Born in 1963, Félix Fernández de Castro has spent most of his life working in advertising.

First, as a creative in different agencies in Barcelona, where he has held all positions, from junior copywriter in the first one to creative director and founding partner in the last one, SCPF...

And then, more than two decades ago, as a filmmaker. Since 2017, at his own production company, Blank films. On both sides of the camera, his work has been recognized with almost all the advertising awards that exist.

In 2010 he shot the film María y yo, a film adaptation of Miguel Gallardo's graphic novel of the same title.

He has two and a half children, two dogs and two cats, with whom he lives intermittently in a house in the mountains of Collserola, north of Barcelona. He likes cooking, baking bread, and if he had not been a director, he would have loved to be a musician or a carpenter.