Photographic archives
Discover all the archivesResearch and conservation of historical photography
The Photographic Social Vision Foundation preserves and promotes extraordinary 20th-century photographic archives, working for their deserved public and institutional recognition through exhibitions, sale of copies, licensing, and book publication.
Represented archives
+ View allIsabel Azkarate
Considered the first female photojournalist in the Basque Country, this intrepid photographer, author of an essential visual legacy, is represented by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation.
Joana Biarnés
Considered Spain’s first female photojournalist, she triumphed in a profession previously reserved for men and immortalized renowned figures. She then seemed to disappear until, in her later years, she gained recognition.
Eugeni Forcano
Known for his images of everyday life in the 1960s, which combine criticism, tenderness, and humor.
Ferran Freixa
An indispensable author for contemporary creative photography, a benchmark for subjective documentary filmmaking, who knew how to visualize the passage of time and the memory of things.
Jacques Léonard
He portrayed the Roma people and their culture from a historical and contemporary perspective. His work has exceptional documentary and anthropological value.
Oriol Maspons
A revolutionary of photographic language in Spain in the 1960s, he was dedicated to reportage, portraiture, fashion, and advertising, and worked for the leading magazines of the time.
Manuel Outumuro
Recognized as one of the world’s best fashion photographers, he came to the profession from a background in graphic design and has received numerous international awards and recognition.
Leopoldo Pomés
His multidisciplinary photographic work brought sensuality to the gray Spain of Franco’s regime and earned him the National Photography Award in 2018.
Anna Turbau
One of the pioneering women of Catalan photojournalism, her work is marked by social commitment, sensitivity, and closeness to the photographed subject.
Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol
His work is a unique photographic testament to post-war Barcelona, rediscovered after decades of neglect, which portrays everyday life with exceptional technical and expressive quality.
Team
+ INFO
Sílvia Omedes (Barcelona, 1971) graduated from The New School for Social Research in New York. She is an independent curator, editor, photographers’ agent, and cultural manager based in Barcelona.
In 2001, she founded the Photographic Social Vision Foundation, dedicated to promoting documentary photography as a tool for raising social awareness. As its director, she has guided the Foundation through various stages of growth, establishing it as a key reference point for Spanish photography.
Sílvia began her career as an exhibition coordinator and curatorial assistant at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). As a photo editor, she has contributed to numerous documentary publications for Blume Publishers. Since 2003, she has collaborated with the World Press Photo Foundation as an exhibition partner and nominator for the Joop Swart Masterclass. She has also been a tutor for World Press Photo Masterclasses in Europe and Latin America. In 2018, she was appointed Secretary of the Jury of the World Press Photo.
As a photographers’ agent and cultural manager, Silvia offers consulting services to both individual photographers and photographic collections, specializing in management strategies for professional development and the spread of historical photographic archives. Among the first important archives she represents there are the family archive of French photographer Jacques Léonard and the professional archive of Joana Biarnés, Spain’s first female photojournalist.
As a nominator of emerging talent, Silvia collaborates annually with the Albert Camus Incipiens Award and the Leica Oscar Barnack Award, and has served on numerous juries for the POY Latam, Luis Valtueña, FNAC Young Talent, Gabo, Luis Kasado, and Zampa awards. She was also part of the editorial team that created the digital photography archive documenting the effects of COVID-19 in Spain in 2021 and 2022.
Since 2014, she has been an active member of the expert advisory committee implementing the National Photography Plan for the Government of Catalonia, and since 2021, she has been part of the professional platform that supports and promotes the creation of a National Photography Center in Spain.
A graduate in Communications from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Marina first became a member of the foundation’s communications department after attending a course on exhibition design. 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 cataloging 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.