Xavier Miserachs left us on 14 August 1998. One year later the Biennal de Fotografia Xavier Miserachs was founded as an homage to the photographer who has inspired and whose presence has been felt in each edition.
Twenty years have passed and many unimaginable things have come to pass. The unceasing development of new communications technology, the increasing relevance of the Internet and social networks, the prevalence and avalanche of images which are incessantly created and the technological advances to tell stories, the democratisation of photography, citizen journalism and other trends have all positively changed the way of doing and observing photography. These changes have also included the progressive disappearance of spaces for photography in traditional media, the banalisation of images and the lack of spaces dedicated to rigorous, true, honest and committed photography, in spite of the possibilities offered by new communications channels.
The Biennal de Fotografia Xavier Miserachs aims to continue to serve as a platform for documentary photography, faithful to the objective that has inspired and kept it going since its first edition. To celebrate making it to this point, this edition we are presenting an amazing programme that Xavier Miserachs would surely have approved of: the magisterial portraits by Atín Aya; two female gazes, Sandra Balsells’ personal hallmark which draws from the classics as well as the delicate nature portrayed by María Contreras Coll; the rigorous and vital testimony of Samuel Aranda and Lorenzo Meloni; Miquel Dewever-Plana’s committed photojournalism; the intimate documentary works by Joan Alvado; the memory of the past by the pioneers Jaume Ferrer and Josep Esquirol; the irony and intelligence of Xavier Miserachs and Henri Cartier-Bresson, with simple, true photography.
