Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial Champions Documentary Photography, Making Costa Brava a Summer Cultural Destination

In a summer full of interesting cultural proposals, such as museums’ bet on fashion exhibitions, the Costa Brava has become the cultural destination of the season. And indeed, for a few days now, the exhibitions comprising the XIV edition of the Bienal de Fotografía Xavier Miserachs, a program in which Palafrugell becomes the mandatory destination for photography lovers.

In this new edition the festival, one of the oldest in Catalonia in its field, pays tribute to the man who gives it its name and to his generation to bring photography closer to the general public. From great figures in the history of national and international photography, to the support of young photographers or the recovery of unknown photographic archives, the Biennial is an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy great creators and unforgettable images.

Joining these are the group shows Local és Global, with testimonies addressing current issues from a stance of denunciation and commitment, Fotografia (en) Coberta, about the use of snapshots in the literary field, and Cuixart a tres bandes, which joins the Town Hall’s events on the occasion of the painter’s centenary; these exhibitions make this Costa Brava town a perfect place to celebrate the art of immortalizing moments.

Dorothea Lange. A Long Journey.

Author of one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century, the portrait of Florence Thompson with her children in a country devastated by the Great Depression and the meteorological conditions, this exhibition devoted to Dorothea Lange’s work offers a journey through the physical, human and emotional landscapes that the photographer traversed. An exceptional document that expresses the will to capture and show a reality, but with sensitivity to transcend it and grant it an enormous artistic dimension. It can be seen, until October 18, at La Bóbila.

Sergio Larraín. The Vagabond of Valparaíso. Retrospective.

Belonging to a family of Chilean high bourgeoisie and trained in the United States, Larraín began to photograph in the 1950s while wandering through his hometown, captivated by urban life. This exhibition traces his short, but fruitful, career through some of the most representative images of his journey through Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Europe. A social and poetic photography characterized by decentered compositions, unusual viewpoints and deep shadows. Until October 18 at the Museu del Suro de Catalunya.

Gabriel Cualladó. Poetics of Simplicity.

The Valencian photographer began his career in 1951 and his self-taught trajectory culminated in the creation of a very recognizable personal language. Cualladó photographs the most familiar and intimate universe with honesty and delicacy, through unembellished portraits and with a rigorous technique of timeless images that have influenced and nurtured his contemporaries and younger generations. The exhibition gathers some of those snapshots, portraits and street scenes, that reflect his modernity and convey emotions with an undeniable poetic charge. At the Fundació Vila Casas. Can Mario, until October 18.

Txema Salvans. Adjectivating Time, Txema Salvans – Josep Pla.

With a renewing and critically minded way of photography that has made him one of the most recognizable authors on the national photography scene, the Barcelona-born photographer portrays everyday scenes, often linked to the leisure realm of working-class people, to which he lends a humorous and often desolate dimension.

In this show, which will be at the Fundació Josep Pla until October 18, it investigates the creative processes of photography and writing to discover in them the elements they share, two singular, yet complementary, ways of relating to the world.

Els Casanovas. Nissaga de Fotògrafs.

Lluís Casanovas Marquès was, 150 years ago, the pioneer of a dynasty of photographers who photographed, uninterruptedly, many generations of Palafrugell families. All of them were portraitists, but also authors of several local reports. Ling and Aura continued Lluís’s craft, followed by his namesake grandson and his great-grandson, also Lluís.

The exhibition is the result of an exhaustive study of the Casanovas family archives and traces Palafrugell’s history, linked here to the history of photography and to the transformations and vicissitudes that both have experienced over one hundred and fifty years. In the Sala de Exposiciones del Teatro Municipal, until October 18.

Wayra Ficapal. The Invisible Landscape.

The exhibition of this photographer, journalist and Catalan graphic editor’s work addresses the current situation of the Ebro Delta, where the lack of sediments retained in the Mequinenza and Riba-roja reservoirs, as well as the pressure of the climate crisis, threaten its survival. Through her work, Ficapal documents this territory and intervenes the photographs with seawater from the Mediterranean Sea, the very sea that is invading and destroying the largest wetland area in Catalonia.

And she does so through snapshots that degrade into images where what was previously perceptible becomes invisible. At the Sant Sebastià de la Guarda Watchtower, in Llafranc, until September 20.

Carles Palacio. Traballadors de la Mar.

Author of various documentary works related to social conflicts, on this occasion the Girona-based photographer focuses on the fishermen of the Costa Brava and highlights the havoc suffered by the sector. The scarce generational handover, the harsh working conditions, the prices at origin, the increasingly scarce catches due to climate change and the reduction of the fish flora or the new European regulations are some of the threats that precarize the sector.

A close and unusual look to valuate this craft, present in the town’s public library until October 18.

Vero Mora Noya. Osses.

Nurse and photographer, Mora Noya has made of her dual training a tribute to the women caregivers who, at a certain point in their lives, must leave this role to become the cared-for. A change of role that implies living a silent transition from autonomy to dependence, and to which the photographer approaches with sensitivity and respect to show the fragility, the dignity and the beauty of the bodies that live this process.