A Magnum agency of Spanish and Latin American photographers

With the reference of the famous Magnum agency, although with much less alcohol or endless poker games, the platform How to be a Photographer (CSF) brings together 29 artists (20 Spanish and nine Latin American) who seek to publicize their work, “which the role of women in artistic creation is recognized, while at the same time it is seen that we are professionals,” says Marta Soul, spokesperson for the group, at the Ateneo de Madrid.

In a room of this institution, which has a Photography section among its sections, EL PAÍS brought together 14 of them for a group portrait and to talk about their projects.

Soul (Madrid, 51 years old), who lives in England, is the architect of this “alliance”, which emerged in 2020. “More and more news came to me from groups of photographers from European countries and I thought that it should also happen in Spain, so I thought about the ones I admired and made an emotional selection.

We started with 20. Furthermore, the issue of language was important, that we could contact artists from Latin American countries,” she adds.

With the conception of photography “as an artistic practice”, he emphasizes, the first task was to set up a website, which was in charge of Elena de la Rúa (Madrid, 46 years old), who is also in charge of designing the group's group exhibitions.

Then came the dissemination, through different media, such as online talks for several months for PHotoEspaña.

Currently, a panoramic view of the photography taken by these authors (apart from the two photo galleries in this text) can be seen at the Museo del Greco, in Toledo, in the exhibition

Una Visión Propia

,

until May 26.

Likewise, on her website there are short documentaries about six of them to better understand her work.

Sofía Moro is a documentary photographer specialized in portraiture.

Collaborator of 'El País Semanal', she is a teacher and has exhibited her work in several countries.

Sofia Moro

De la Rúa, who has a degree in Fine Arts, has photography as the basis of her work, but painting and sculpture are also present: “In my images I tell how we relate to the outside through imagination or emotions.”

In her latest project, titled

Paradise Eats Flesh

, she photographs small dead animals and then paints over the image.

Thanks to the platform, she is preparing a workshop on still life that she will teach to teenage students in Nigeria.

Rosa Muñoz (Madrid, 61 years old) is from an older generation.

With a long career that includes individual exhibitions at the Canal de Isabel II (Madrid) or the Andalusian Center of Photography (Almería), his images are part of the Georges Pompidou Center (Paris) or the Alcobendas Art Center (Madrid) .

Hers is “scenic, constructed photography,” in which there is always a reflection “on the passage of time,” she says.

A collaborator for decades in the media (

El País Semanal

, El

Mundo

Magazine

, Matador...

), she is immersed in a project about abandoned places in which she intervenes and to which, in some way, she gives a second life.

A work that alternates with video projections, like the one she recently carried out for three nights on the façade of the Senate, in Madrid.

Marta Soul is the artist who created the platform How to Be a Photographer.

Her work focuses on identity roles.Marta Soul

'Stitched Panorama', by Rosa Muñoz, a visual artist whose work is defined by "interventions in space within the context of reality."Rosa Muñoz

Portraiture is the specialty of documentary photographer Sofía Moro.Sofía Moro

The work of the visual artist Paula Anta has been exhibited in numerous Spanish art centers.Paula Anta

Fabiola Cedillo is Ecuadorian and has worked as a photojournalist for Reuters while carrying out her personal projects.Fabiola Cedillo

Clara de Tezanos is a Guatemalan artist and cultural manager.CLARA DE TEZANOS

Eunice Adorno is a photographer, born in Mexico City, in 1982.Eunice Adorno

Photography by Argentine Pilar Giambastiani Tavelli.Pilar Giambastiani Tavelli

Photography of the Catalan artist and pedagogue Tanit Plana.TANIT PLANA

Lurdes R. Basolí won the Inge Morath award in 2010, awarded by the Magnum agency to photographers under 30 years of age. LURDES R. BASOLÍ

Gloria Oyarzabal diversifies her professional activity between cinema, teaching and photography.

Gloria Oyarzabal

Photographer and graphic editor, Laura Martínez Lombardía co-directs a production studio for artistic projects.LAURA MARTÍNEZ LOMBARDÍA

Brazilian Angélica Dass combines photography with sociological research and activism in defense of human rights.ANGÉLICA DASS

María Platero is another member of How to Be a Photographer who alternates her artistic production with teaching.María Platero

Photography by Mariela Sancari from Buenos Aires.Mariela Sancari

“Over time we have seen that our platform was becoming more interesting, and now there are artists who want to enter, and they are good, but little known,” adds Muñoz at the Ateneo, which is precisely in the process of including illustrious female Athenaeists in its gallery. of portraits.

To enter CSF, the candidate must be nominated by a member of the group.

“Those who finally decide are external curators, chosen by me, who review their works,” says Soul, who also does staged photography but with characters.

“It is as if film

frames

were extracted , with a narrative in which these people express their emotions,” she explains of her works, in which she shows a love “for the relationship as a couple.”

Soul adds that a common quality of all the members of CSF is that they are feminists: “Many times we have heard photographers tell us: 'You only take photos of your body.'

This platform shows that this is not the case.

We are, however, a heterogeneous group, not a political movement, nor are we all interested in the same issues.”

Toya Legido is a researcher and professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid.

Toya Legido

Rosell Meseguer is a visual artist and doctor in Fine Arts. This image belongs to her work 'Battery of Ashes', of which a selection of images has recently been published in 'El País Semanal'.Rosell Meseguer

An image by the artist Soledad Córdoba, doctor in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid.

Soledad Córdoba

Image of the project 'Paradise eats meat', by Elena de la Rúa, graduate in Fine Arts.ELENA DE LA RÚA

Image of Amparo Garrido, visual artist and filmmaker who has held individual and group exhibitions for 25 years.Amparo Garrido

Photography by Elisa Miralles, who is the coordinator of the online course taught by the platform for female photographers.Elisa Miralles

Estela de Castro is, in addition to being a photographer, a teacher.

Her work has been exhibited in numerous art centers.

In 2019 she made the official portraits of Kings Felipe and Letizia.

Castro Stele

An image of the photographer and graphic designer Ingrid Weyland.Ingrid Weyland

Alejandra Carles-Tolrá is a visual artist, photographer and educator.

ALEJANDRA CARLES-TOLRÁ

Linarejos Moreno is an artist, researcher and teacher at the Complutense University of Madrid.LINAREJOS MORENO

Solange Adum is a Peruvian photographer who teaches in Lima.SOLANGE ADUM

Luján Agustí is another of the Latin Americans on the How to Be a Photographer platform.

She resides in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). LUJÁN AGUSTÍ

Lucía Morate is a visual artist, teacher and cultural mediator.LUCÍA MORATE

Carmela García is an artist who uses not only photography, but also video and installation in her work.

CARMELA GARCIA

Paula Anta (Madrid, 47 years old) delves into this explanation: “The platform has allowed me to gain a foothold in the fight for a world as masculine as photography.

“We had to fight for what we were doing to be taken seriously.”

Thanks to the contacts and movement generated by CSF, Anta has enjoyed a residence in the Ivory Coast that will produce an exhibition about a landfill in Abidjan that the Ivorian Government is converting into a park.

“I have photographed this transformation, which can be seen at Casa África, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.”

Nature is very present in her work.

“I also make interventions in the landscape and my latest projects have a more ecological nature because I work in an increasingly damaged environment.”

Fabiola Cedillo is one of the Latin Americans in the group.

She is 36 years old, born in Cuenca (Ecuador), she has collaborated with the Reuters agency.

She is passing through Madrid before leaving for Dubai to work on a project about consumerism in that emirate.

She says that her focus is on documentary photography: “I am interested in what happens to people who do not comply with social or moral rules, who move in that periphery.”

Cedillo asserts that while European photographers “are more influenced by classical art when it comes to composing or how to use light,” Latin American photographers are influenced by the visual imagery that comes from the United States.

“When people started doing photography, they wanted to replicate what they did,” and he adds that “in Latin America, experimental photography is not as present as in Europe.”

The Ecuadorian photographer Fabiola Cedillo, at the Reina Sofía Museum, on Friday, March 15. Álvaro García

Among the activities of this group of photographers, an annual

online

course stands out , coordinated by Elisa Miralles.

“It started in November and will end in June, with a virtual exhibition with works by the 10 students.

They have to develop a project and the idea is to encourage them in their work and help them make their way,” she explains.

Different subjects are taught, such as photobooks, relationships with galleries, portraiture... Miralles is a chemical engineer and began photography in 2007. Her work has been oriented toward issues related to gender and stereotypes.

Among her works is

Memories without Memory

, in which she showed the daily life of her grandmother who was sick with Alzheimer's.

The CSF website also offers the option of purchasing work from the authors, and the last “bet”, indicates Soul, is a virtual gallery, a space for exhibitions through which the user can move and which is open to artists outside the collective. .

In addition, the group moves to take their works to different festivals and art fairs.

'Stitched Panorama', photography by the artist Rosa Muñoz, who has collaborated in numerous magazines, including 'El País Semanal'.Rosa Muñoz

Looking to the future, Soul assures that he would like the platform to set “a course in Spanish photography” and help its members “have an international presence.”

“And economic autonomy, which is fundamental,” adds Anta.

“May we make money!”

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