Héctor Mediavilla Sabaté

He is a storyteller, who uses different audiovisual media to share his reflections on human beings. He is interested, above all, in questions of identity in singular groups and their relationship with the territory. A professional photographer since 2001, he is also a filmmaker, trainer and manager of participatory photography projects.

He has received recognition in competitions such as POYI, Fotopres, Descubrimientos PhotoEspaña, CoNCA and others. He has published in media such as Colors, Geo, New York Times, El País, Time, Esquire, Gatopardo and XXI. His works have been exhibited all over the world, from the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta or the French Institute of Kinshasa to the Centro Cultural de España in Mexico, among others. He has participated in numerous festivals such as Voies Off Arles, Kaunas Photo, Angkor Photo, Paraty em Foco, Conjuntos da Imagem de Braga or Les Rencontres de Bamako.

The mini documentary he directed about the Congolese Sapeurs was awarded a Grand and a Gold Clio in New York in 2014 and silver awards at the Cannes Lions and British Arrow Awards.

He carried out his first participatory photography project in 2015, an experience that transformed his vision of photography by recognizing these projects as powerful tools for social and individual transformation. It was followed by “Puc fer un milió de coses” with adults with borderline intelligence and “Sueños Refugiados” with young asylum applicants. Projects supported by “Art for Change” from La Caixa. He has also designed and facilitated workshops for African photographers such as “Afrotopía” which he gave to 35 photographers in Senegal, Niger and Mali with the About Aecid program in 2017.

He has a degree in economics and an MBA from Esade. He studied a postgraduate degree in Cultural Management at the Pompeu Fabra University. Currently, he is completing a postgraduate degree in Photographic Creation and Reflection at the IEFC, which is expanding his questioning of visually represented reality into new territories.