2023

INVISIBILITZAR AMB LA CÀMERA, LA PARADOXA DE L’ESPERANÇA

SACRIFICI

RETROSPECTIVA D’UN POBLE

2022

2021

SANTI DONAIRE

SÍLVIA PRIÓ

MERI SANTOS

NOA MORALES AND SERGI CONESA

28 OCT > 7 NOV / Outside wall of the Es Mercadal Convention Centre

28 OCT / 7 pm – Opening

ANGELE DUMONT

28 OCT > 7 NOV / Outside wall of the Es Mercadal Convention Centre

28 OCT / 7 pm – Opening

2020

Since 1997, Médecins del Món Spain has held the annual Luis Valtue’a International Prize for Humanitarian Photography, dedicated to the memory of Flors Sirera, Luis Valtue’a, Manuel Madrazo and Mercedes Navarro, four members of the organization who were murdered in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina while participating in humanitarian action projects.

In this edition, she presents the award-winning work Mare Substituta, the work of the winning photographer,  Mohsen Kaboli (Irán) i els tres finalistes: «El último viaje de Zohra Sarrouj» by Javier Fergo (Espanya), «Cruzando la última frontera, en Tijuana» by Daniel Ochoa de Olza (Espanya), and «Hijos de la desmemoria» by Santi Donaire (Espanya). Organised by Metges del Món.

The four authors address current issues through the lens and the language of documentary photography: the complexity of the controversial issue of rental belly, migration to Europe or the United States and the forced disappearances that occurred in Spain during and after the Civil War.

28 OCT > 15 NOV / Sala Multifuncional, Es Mercadal

29 OCT / 7 pm – Opening, with the presence of the photographer and director Santi Donaire, finalist of the last edition of the contest with the project “Hijos de la desmemoria”

«Javier Coll, 45 anys de fotoperiodisme». The photographer with the longest trajectory of photojournalism in Menorca. 45 years of profession, since 1976 he has been at the head of the Diari Menorca. A photographic legacy that has left a very important mark on the Menorcan imaginary. He has been able to photograph the Menorcan transition from the perspective of a media, which his exhibition shows especially on this occasion.

29 OCT > 15 NOV / Ca n’Ángel, Es Mercadal

29 OCT / 8 pm – Opening and guided tour with photographer Javier Coll

The photographer  Neus Solà (Barcelona, 1984) was awarded the First Prize for Documentary Photography MDF 2020, the first prize of these characteristics of the Balearic Islands.

The artist and documentary photographer traces with Poupées (nines, in French) a visual testimony of the Roma female youth of the community of La Cité de Perpignan, and shows the wildest face of childhood and adolescence of these young people, which contrasts with the restrictions they will have to assume once they have lost their virginity to become adult women. The title of the project also aims to serve as a metaphor associated with the gypsy patriarchal system and to highlight the premature cosification and sexualization of these girls who, paradoxically, must coexist with the standards dictated by their tradition.

Interested in exploring the human condition, her photographic work focuses on issues of identity, gender and territory from an anthropological perspective. His work has been recognized nationally and internationally and has exhibited in several countries such as Spain, France, Sweden, the UAE, India or Mexico, among others. Since 2017 she has been working on a project on the transgender community of India and, recently, she has accompanied participatory photography projects in Catalonia and France.

3 NOV > 22 NOV / Exhibition hall of the Church of Gràcia (l’Hospital), Alaior

On March 14, 2020, after the declaration of the state of alarm, citizens were confined to their homes to try to stop the advance of COVID-19. It was only justified to go out onto the street if the work was related to a strategic sector, as was the case with the media. A field in which photojournalists played a fundamental role, in the front line.

Eight media colleagues from the islands are part of this exhibition «Mesos de confinament». Gemma Andreu, David Arquimbau, Josep Begur Gomila, Isaac Buj, Ismael Velázquez, Vicent Marí, Juan Antonio Riera and Cati Cladera.

The contributions of the eight photographers are combined in the exhibition, with audiovisual elements with the purpose of making an x-ray of what the pandemic meant during confinement. An invitation to stimulate reflection on the impact of the pandemic on the lives of the inhabitants of the Archipelago.

5 NOV > 28 NOV / Sala Sant Antoni, Maó

2019

The Luís Valtue.a International Prize for Humanitarian Photography is held annually. After the XXI edition, the award and the exhibitions have consolidated as a benchmark in humanitarian photography, denouncing the violation of human rights. The Luís Valtue’a prize consists of a grant for the realization of a photographic project in a work area of Médecins de Món.

This international prize for humanitarian photography has become a benchmark with commitment and solidarity. With the help of Médecins del Món.

29 OCT > 1 NOV / Biblioteca des Mercadal

The collective 220 is a photographic story anchored in various scattered areas of Algerian territory, which tells stories of people, cities and spaces. This group aims to be a wide field of experimentation and learning for each member, with its varied subjects, techniques and tools. In addition to being a kind of internal shared laboratory, 220 is a way to create external links to promote exchanges with photographers, artists and other collectives around the world. Since 2014, they have occupied public space in Algeria with ephemeral exhibitions, which become transmitters of new proposals.

31 OCT > 3 NOV / CCM, Es Mercadal

In this highly industrialised society we live daily with a saturated environment of chemicals. We eat them, we breathe them, we touch them… For the majority of the population, many of these elements are harmless, but not for everyone.

Dizziness, vomiting, fatigue or loss of consciousness are some of the symptoms with which people who suffer from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MSD) have to deal daily. Known colloquially as an environmental disease, this pathology has its origin in the adverse reaction to various chemical compounds present in our food and environment.

Those affected by this syndrome live ignored by institutions, by doctors and even misunderstood by an environment incapable of recognising an imperceptible condition, which cannot be seen or touched, or even heard, leading patients to a social condemnation in which even their psychological integrity is questioned.

“Birds of Pollution” collects the lives of a series of women affected by SQM, who need to be imprisoned to survive, because they must obey a strict protocol that avoids contact with chemists or people who have been exposed to these substances. The aim is to keep out of home a threat that keeps their lives under constant invisible danger, in a claustrophobic routine full of shadows. The home thus becomes a chamber of isolation, where perspective and relationship with an outside world that becomes unrealistic is lost.

Carmen Sayago

31 OCT > 3 NOV / CCM, Es Mercadal

Es Castell, S. XXI – 250 -2021 is a project initiated by David Arquimbau in 2012, which aims to show the life and daily life of the inhabitants of Es Castell.

With this project, Arquimbau wants to record the multiculturality of Es Castell, capturing street scenes from the day to day of the town, as well as celebrations such as Christmas, Easter, Carnival or patron saint festivities.

David Arquimbau is a photojournalist at the EFE agency and collaborates with publications such as Diari Ara and El País, among others.

31 OCT > 3 NOV / Ca n’Ángel, Es Mercadal

The project: «Camins» is a journey through the entry into Europe of the wave of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. The summer of 2015 has been visited by thousands of people looking for new challenges, a safe life, fleeing from the instability of their countries.

The work will consist of a photographic exhibition of about 35 images that represent this journey of refugees.

The refugee crisis has possibly been one of the most documented human tragedies in recent years and yet the images that have come to us have not been able to trigger a political response from Europe. It is for this reason that I propose to intervene pictorially the images of the journey of these refugees, working from the photographs that Cristian Pons Coll made of his path from the coasts of Greece until his arrival in autumn 2015. The applied painting on the intervened photographs will give the viewer a new opportunity to reflect on the environment of this tragedy and ask again about the meaning of these images. The objective of the pictorial intervention will be to highlight or incorporate some relevant meaning with respect to the story that the rest of the photographs weave.

Cristian Pons Coll. Photographer and cultural manager. Mahon (Menorca) on 29 July 1979. He lives in Es Mercadal (Menorca), where he develops his activity as a freelance in communication and audiovisual at the production company Tramuntana Fotografia (www.tramuntanafotografa.com). Tasks as a lighting technician in the film “A l’ombra de la muntanya” (In the shadow of the mountain). Project funded by University of Leeds. Direct sound in film for Producer Elsabeth in the film ARDARA. (www.ardaraflm.com). Professor of image and sound at the Mediterranean Film Festival (Médit). For five years as an operator of the Department of Emissions in Autonomic Television of the Balearic Islands.

Director of Photography for the Agency for Spanish Cooperation and Development in collaboration with CERAI (www.cerai.es). Correspondent for the Catalan News Agency ACN. (www.acn.cat). She grants young photographers from the Archive of Image and Sound of Menorca (2005 and 2008). Degree in Business Administration and Management and Audiovisual Communication. She is part of the team of cultural managers at Es FAR Cultrual (www.esfarcultural.net)

Alex Franquesa. Plastic artist. Barcelona (Catalonia) on 15 November 1979. Biologist and plastic artist with a marked interest in mixed techniques that mix painting and photography. He currently lives in Berlin where he develops his artistic activity and works as a biologist on horseback between Catalonia and Menorca. In addition to his activity in the mapping of natural habitats, his plastic works include large-format mural paintings and participation in various European collective exhibitions (“Walter benjamin’s suitcases. Migrating devices” and “Literary cities, XIII International Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Petit Format”). His pictorial work focuses on the analysis of current social constraints and seeks to rehabilitate the image – through photography and painting – as an effective tool for raising awareness and transmitting ideas around these conflicts.

31 OCT > 3 NOV / Ca n’Ángel, Es Mercadal

Houses converted into muddy, cars piled up in scrap hills, sad eyes for the destructions and the thirteen lives lost. The photographs of the effects of the flood that flooded the east of Mallorca in October 2018 show all this, but also the drive of the volunteers, the hope of collaboration and the will to redo what the water had taken.

ISAAC BUJ

Isaac Buj was born in Barcelona in 1976. In 2001 he graduated in Photography from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). He began his career as a photographer, starting to work in the Alsina fashion studio, between 2000 and 2003, as an assistant in photography, lighting and photography editing. Later he had the opportunity to work and get to know the world of television, recording, editing and performing in various programs both informative and reporting. Since 2007 he has devoted himself exclusively to photography, first as an official photographer of the Government of the Balearic Islands (from 2007 to 2011) and currently as a freelance photographer and editor of photography in the newspaper ARA Balears, in the magazine El Temps, Europapress and for press and communication (EFE Agency, Diari de Mallorca, El País…). In addition, she collaborates in other publications and carries out personal projects.

31 OCT > 3 NOV / Sala Multifuncional, Es Mercadal

At 9 a.m. and 50 minutes in the morning of 28 October 2018, a high-intensity fiblon head crossed Menorca, from Cala en Porter to Favàritx. He left his mark of destruction and knocked down five high-voltage towers on the two lines, north and south, between Maó and Ciutadella. This was how much of the island was left without electricity. The longest night lasted 55 hours and 53 minutes. The Menorcans discovered the island’s energy precariousness. It could have been worse, but it was enough to verify that Menorca needs another energy system, less polluting and safer.

This was the most important news of 2018, which still has consequences today, because a solution that guarantees the supply of electricity has not been reached.

The photographers of diari Menorca Gemma Andreu, Javier Coll, Josep Bagur Gomila and Sergi Garcia continued with their cameras the effects of the fibló head and all the circumstances experienced by the thousands of Menorcans who returned to the times when electricity did not exist. The images are the most real testimony of how people lived in the dark an unusual situation on an island without cable connection with Mallorca, dependent only on the power station.

Each graphic reporter covered the information of different situations: Gemma Andreu witnessed the damage caused by the fibló boss and what day-to-day life was like without electricity. Javier Coll monitored the operation to respond to the needs of people and the installation of generators. Josep Bagur showed a Ciutadella in the dark for two nights. Sergi Garcia captured the weather effects. The exhibition incorporates some initial images of the tombed electrical towers and others in which the new ones that were built by Red Eléctrica can already be seen and that allowed the distribution of electricity to be recovered throughout the island.

31 OCT > 7 NOV / Ca n’Ángel, Es Mercadal

31 OCT > 3 NOV / Esplai de Jubilats, Es Mercadal

He began his professional life in the 1970s as a photographer in the music magazine musical Vibraciones and also collaborates in newspapers, publishers and record labels such as Correo Catalán, El País, Planeta, RBA, Edicions 62, Ariola, CBS, RCA, EMI or EDIGSA; also in magazines, Rock Espezial, Viejo Topo, Rock de Lux, Fotogramas, Por Favor or Interviu.

In the book Música pels ulls, published in 2012 by the Barcelona City Council, on the occasion of the exhibition with the same name, in the Palau Robert, you can see photographs of musical artists from different national and international fields, who performed between 1970 and 1990, basically in Barcelona.

He has participated in different individual and collective exhibitions.

Francesc Fàbregas professional career has been linked to TV3, where he has created and directed the Sputnik program and has promoted the programs Autògrafs, 3rd 3rd Silenci?, Loops!, K33, Colors en serial, Opera en texans. He has also had various responsibilities as head of programmes on Canal 33 and as director and executive producer of cultural, musical and special programmes on Televisió de Catalunya. Since 2013 she has been directing and organising the Formentera Fotogràfica Photographic Photography Festival. He has been a member of the Improving Committee of the National Plan for Photography of the Government of Catalonia since 2014.

31 OCT > 3 NOV / Esplai de Jubilats, Es Mercadal