Mission
THE FOUNDATION
Photographic Social Vision is a non-profit organisation, founded in 2001, that champions documentary photography as a means to build a more conscious and better-informed society. We organise exhibitions, grants, awards, visual education workshops and represent photographic archives.
THE ARCHIVES AREA
Through this area of work, the Foundation preserves and promotes 10 photographic archives from the mid to late 20th century through exhibitions, print sale, licensing and book publications.
Joana Biarnés Archive
The Foundation owns and safeguards the Joana Biarnés Archive, as the photographer donated her archive to the Foundation during her lifetime with the wish that it would preserve and disseminate it. We preserve the archive and allocate the resources generated from its exploitation to the Joana Biarnés Grant for young photojournalists.
Represented archives
In parallel, we also represent 9 other photographic collections, with the aim of helping their authors or heirs to preserve and promote them. Discover and explore the represented archives here.
Space
Archive preservation room
We maintain a cold storage facility with controlled temperature and relative humidity, flat file cabinets for large-format photographic prints, and acid-free conservation materials, in accordance with international standards for the preventive conservation of photography.
Showroom
A space with museum-grade lighting where we display photographs and allow public and private collectors to discover the archives and acquire works. Contact us to arrange an appointment and visit the showroom.
Garden
A cultural meeting space where we host book launches, training sessions and talks on photography. Every Sant Jordi we organise the photobook fair, a gathering point for photography book lovers.
Team
With a degree in Fine Arts from the New School for Social Research in New York and a master’s degree in management functions from ESADE, Sílvia Omedes (Barcelona, 1971) is a cultural manager, independent curator, agent for photographers, editor and teacher of documentary photography.
She has directed the Photographic Social Vision Foundation in Barcelona since 2001. She has worked at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, at the Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona and for the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam as Secretary of the Jury of the competition in its edition of year 2018.
As a nominator of young talent, she collaborates annually with the Incipiens Albert Camús Award, the Leica Oscar Barnack Award and the Joop Swart Masterclass scholarship. She has been a jury for the POY Latam, Luis Valtueña, Joven Talento FNAC, Pemio Gabo, Luis Kasado and Zampa awards, and was also a member of the graphic editing table of the Archivo Covid in 2021 and 2022.
Since 2014, she has been a member of the Committee of experts that promotes the National Photography Plan of the Generalitat of Catalonia and since 2021, he has been a member of the Plataforma Centro de Fotografía e Imagen.
A graduate in Communications from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Marina first became a member of the foundation’s communications department, and she has since gone on to coordinate workshops, events, and exhibitions aimed at the development of documentary photographers.
More recently, she has specialised in the conservation and management of photographic archives, studying at l’Escola Superior d’Arxivística at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya. Currently, from the professional area of the foundation, she is involved in cataloguing and disseminating the work of various photographers.
Architecture has been the way to understand her environment, and the tool to develop her visual capacity. After training in architecture schools between Barcelona and Milan, photography came into her life unexpectedly in one of the first jobs she found when she returned to Barcelona.
After twenty years working in photographic production, she studied at the Institute of Photographic Studies of Catalonia, and it was then that she put herself behind a camera.
Since 2015 she has been a researcher for the Joana Biarnés Archive from the Professional Area of the Photographic Social Vision Foundation. Her project “Journey to a file” recounts the personal experience of 5 years of work with Biarnés.
She is currently dedicated to research and divulgation of other photographic archives represented by the Foundation.
Graduated in history, manager of quality systems, postgraduate in development cooperation and extensive training related to the visual arts. He has combined different jobs related to his academic training with the management and cataloguing the work of different plastic artists, organization and curator of exhibitions, coordination of cultural publications and collaboration with entities related to cultural dissemination. She is the director of the Xavier Miserachs Biennial of Photography and manager of photographic collections.
Valeria is a documentary photographer and workshop leader specialized in cultural and social projects in complex environments. She carries out participatory photography workshops, especially aimed at people from groups that are stigmatized or at risk of exclusion.
Graduated in Journalism, Master in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, and Postgraduate in Documentary Photography, she has worked as a photojournalist in different media and collaborated with different organizations dedicated to the development of inclusive environments and the fight against social exclusion, especially with the immigrant population and children.