Milena Villalba
Valencia, 1984
Milena Villalba qualified as an architect at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2012) and studied photography at the School of Art and Design in the same city (2015). Her aim is to communicate architecture from an experiential, everyday point of view. Outstanding moments of her career include her participation in the 2021 Venice Biennale, where the video documentary on the works of the Palauet de Nolla, made jointly with Santi H. Puig, was selected and exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion (Venice, Italy, 2021); the street installation of the photographic series “The Everyday Life of Nolla Ceramic Tiles in the Street”, commissioned by Meliana Council to showcase the Nolla ceramic mosaic of the village’s houses (Meliana, Valencia, Spain, 2020), and the photographic reportages that illustrate the monographic Tiempos de Miralles, of the international research journal En Blanco (issue 29), showing the life and materiality of Enric Miralles 20 years after his death (2020). She was a member of the jury of the INCUNA International Industrial Heritage Photography Competition (Gijón, Spain, 2020-2021). She teaches in the Ceramics Department of the Valencia School of Architecture (2019-present day). She received the Spanish Cultural Action scholarship for Development Cooperation with the Make collective to carry out an artistic-cultural project in collaboration with associations from the suburb of Guédiawaye (Dakar, Senegal, 2019). She won first prize in Architecture of Sensations, organized by Pez Globo, for the series “The Refuge” (Tenerife, Spain, 2019), and first prize in the Imaginaria competition of the Architects’ Association of Castellón – CTAC for her series about industrial architectural heritage, “Potteries”, which showcases the abandoned ceramic brick factories in Oliva (Castellón, Spain, 2019). At the Almodí Museum in Valencia she presented the exhibition Neighbourhood Parks, commissioned by the Urban Planning Department of Valencia School of Architecture and the City Council (Valencia, Spain, 2018). At the Polytechnic University of Valencia she exhibited the photographic series “The Place of Everyday Life” (2018) and, in the abandoned factory of La Campaneta, the series about architectural industrial heritage, “Burnt Substance”, highlighting the abandoned ceramic factory complex in Onda (Castellón, Spain, 2015).
Andrés Flajszer
Buenos Aires, 1975
Trained as an architect and photographer, in 2000 Andrés Flajszer moved to Barcelona, where he completed his architecture studies at the ETSAV-UPC and his photographic training at the Iefc. For seven years he collaborated with local architecture studios (B01, DataAE and Nug), and took part in competitions and urban planning and construction projects.
In 2011 he joined Actar Publishers, where for two years he formed part of the editorial team and worked, among others, on two titles: The Sniper’s Log: Crónicas arquitectónicas de la Generación X and Barcelona: Guia d’arquitectura moderna.
Since 2011 he has given courses in photography, architecture, narrative and storytelling at the Escola Sert School – COAC and the IIAC – Valldaura Labs, among others. Since 2007 he has pursued a professional career as an architecture and landscape photographer working with local and international clients such as architecture studios, construction firms and public institutions. His personal work could be described as photographic architecture in which he uses photography as a tool for observation but also as a way to construct and transform the various realities of the multiverse.
Pedro Pegenaute
Pamplona, 1977
Pedro Pegenaute is a professional photographer specializing in architecture since 2005, the year he parked his career as a building engineer to devote himself exclusively to photography. Since then, he has worked with renowned national and international architects and publishers. He has received several awards in photography competitions for his highly personal way of seeing: first prize of the Architects’ Association of the Basque Country and Navarre – Coavn (2005), first prize in the Perspectives from Architecture Award (2011) of the Juan Gil-Albert Institute of Culture, and finalist in the Purificación García Photography Prize 2007, with the purchase of the finalist photograph to form part of the brand’s private collection.
He has also sat on the jury in several photography contests. His works have featured in numerous architecture exhibitions in cities such as Pamplona, Barcelona, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York and London. His personal work has been shown in solo exhibitions since 2003, the year in which it was first purchased by individuals and private collections, and he also receives commissions to produce large-format murals for interior spaces.
In recent years, reflection on “the human side of architecture” —an explanation of architecture from the viewpoint of the user— and new forms of visual representation have led him to explore the audiovisual field, creating videos that draw on his essence as a photographer. In 2011 he set up Pegenaute Studio and, in 2013, published his first book, Pedro Pegenaute Personal, and the collection of architecture books “Pegenaute Photovolumes”.
In 2021 he showed an audiovisual project at the Palacio del Condestable in Pamplona. With 2020 Pamplona at Home, made during the lockdown prompted by Covid-19, Pedro Pegenaute invited various architects and other professionals related to architecture to make a reflection inspired by the photographs included in it. This travelling project comprises 97 photographs accompanied by 51 reflections, the book of the exhibition and the film Fragmentos de una vida.
Aitor Estévez
Irun, 1977
Aitor Estévez is an architect and architecture photographer. He combined his university studies at the San Sebastian School of Architecture with the practice of other means of artistic expression such as sculpture, painting, graphic design and photography. Since 2002 he has worked at various architecture practices in Donostia-San Sebastian and Barcelona, and in 2007 he set up his own studio. From 2012 to 2018 he was an associate lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, teaching the subjects of projects and analysis of forms.
In his career as a photographer, he has produced reportages for many architecture firms and specialist publications, nationally and internationally. In addition to his work in the professional field, he has also produced others of a personal nature that have received prizes and mentions in competitions such as the Efti Prize at Art Photo Bcn 2016 and the distinction of finalist in the Spanish Architecture Biennial 2021. He has had various solo exhibitions such as Industrial 11 / Industrial Landscapes in Catalonia at the National Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia (2015), and Chronotropes / Intermediate States of Architecture at the Palacio del Condestable in Pamplona (2017), and has taken part in group shows such as Brangulí 2000-2011 at the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture – CCCB and Grafting Architecture, at the 2014 Venice Biennale. He has been a guest jury member for various competitions, such as the Efim Photography and Heritage Competition and the Looks competition organized by the Architects’ Association of the Basque Country and Navarre – COAVN.
Jon Tugores
England, 1968
Architect, airline pilot, university lecturer and photographer, Jon Tugores is a multifaceted person who hybridizes his four disciplines in reciprocal experiences; an actor in the current technological moment, and defender and promoter of hypertechnology as an environmental solution. He has lived in London, Berlin, Vienna, Dallas, Bahrain, Madrid, Mallorca, Barcelona and Terrassa, where he has his architecture studio. He has taught at the ETSAV, the UIC and the LNYIT, and now works at the School of Aeronautical Engineers of the UPC. Over 60 projects, more than 20 awards, five books, one documentary, over 10,000 flight hours and more than 30,000 photographs of the planet mark him out as an atypical character on today’s cultural scene. In 2019 he had his first solo exhibition in Barcelona. In 2021, Bbva Foundation promoted his most ambitious exhibition to date, Atmos-Fear, bringing together views of the territory and its relationship with non-nature. Atmos-Fear is currently making its way around Europe.
Jon Tugores is preparing his first collection of non-aerial photographs, a work on his view of the “decadent” European continent.
Xavi Bou and Joan Diví
These two photographers met four years ago in a small town on the Costa Brava and immediately realized that they shared two great passions: photography and nature. Since then they have collaborated on several photographic projects.
They make a good team, as Joan Diví is very versatile in the field thanks to years of experience in documentary and commercial photography. Xavi Bou has a background of 15 years in post-production and the desire to experiment in the field of nature photography.
Xavi Bou
Barcelona, 1979
Xavier Bou graduated in Geology at the University of Barcelona, combining his degree with photography studies. After completing his studies in 2003 he began his professional career in the world of fashion and advertising photography as a photographer’s assistant and retoucher. In 2009 he set up a retouching studio specializing in campaigns for major national and international brands and magazines.
After presenting his project Ornithographies in 2015 he immediately came to international attention, leading him to be featured in numerous publications around the world and exhibited in ten countries. This has made possible his dream of devoting himself fully to this project and to the search for others.
Joan Diví
Girona, 1986
Joan Diví gained a master’s degree in photography at the Eram University School in Girona. Since then he has devoted himself to documentary and commercial photography, and accumulated years of experience. He is an enthusiast observer of wildlife.
Adrià Goula
Barcelona, 1973
Adrià Goula is an architect, since 2004 combining architecture photography with more personal multidisciplinary works. As an architecture photographer, he has carried out photography and audiovisual commissions for well-known architects and public and private institutions, both nationally and internationally. His work has been published in different monographs, books and magazines, featuring on the front cover on numerous occasions. He has taught at Elisava and the Escola Sert School, and now teaches on the master’s degree course at La Salle Architecture University. He has taken part in conferences, talks and workshops at national and international congresses and schools of architecture.
His research projects are related to architecture, but also to traces, memory, built elements, and the relationship with nature and the environment. His work has left the strictly photographic domain to explore new formats such as installation, sculpture and video. He was a finalist in the Aena 2012 competition and Discoveries of PHotoESPAÑA 2012. Esteyco Foundation published the monograph De-Construcción (2011). His work Re-Edificatoria formed part of the Spain Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion, as well as receiving the Bienalba Prize for photographic production in architecture at the Buenos Aires Architecture Biennial in 2017. In 2020 he received the Lux Silver and Bronze prizes in the architecture photography category, and a prize in the photography section of the 2021 Spanish Architecture and Urban Planning Biennial. His Monochromes project was shown at Arts Santa Mònica during Art Photo Bcn (2020) and published in Paisatge i imatge, by Observatori del Paisatge (2021). The multidisciplinary project Nomad Cell, based on research into the Barcelona Model prison cell where his grandfather was imprisoned during the dictatorship, was included in the group exhibitions at Felícia Fuster Foundation (October 2020); Lab36 at Senda gallery (June 2020); the group show that opened Mataró Art Contemporani (February 2022); Bianyal (October 2022), and Lluèrnia Festival (November 2022), and a monographic exhibition about it ran at H2O gallery in Barcelona (2021).
Maite Caramés
Barcelona, 1972
Maite Caramés is a photographer and creator of visual projects with a degree in Art History from the University of Barcelona and Photography Studies from the Photographic Studies Institute of Catalonia. She has participated in some 30 solo and group exhibitions at venues and festivals such as Vila Casas Foundation, H2O and Tagomago galleries, Fotofever, MadridFoto, Zaat Festival, Contraluz gallery, the Saint Petersburg Photography Festival and Foto Colectania Foundation.
She has received several awards at international art festivals and fairs: Wellcome Photography Prize (2020), DOCfield Dummy Award (2018), Organ Vida International Photography Festival (2013), Discoveries PHotoESPAÑA (2012), Manege Central Exhibition Hall, Saint Petersburg Photography Festival (2011) and Caixa Terrassa Photography Prize (2010), among others.
She has carried out art direction and curatorial projects such as Barcelona, Photographic Memory, produced by Ideal – Centre d’Arts Digitals (2020). She has taught portrait courses with refugees and people with borderline intellectual functioning. She has self-published two books: Entre tú y yo (2014) and Lada Stories (2019). Some of her photographs form part of private collections, such as those of Banc de Sabadell Foundation, Vila Casas Foundation and Antiga Caixa de Terrassa Foundation. Her work has recently been purchased as part of the National Photography Plan.
She is a versatile photographer, hard to pigeonhole into a genre or a style; she has cultivated everything from still lifes to portraits, to animal fables, and fashion and venue photography. She works on commission and on personal projects. She produces black-and-white and colour photography, and uses both analogue and digital cameras.
Pol Viladoms
Barcelona, 1981
Architect and self-taught photographer, Pol Viladoms has developed his work by documenting landscape in its broadest sense. With particular emphasis on architecture as a territorial and cultural symbol, his works revolve around concepts such as identity, narrative and memory.
His university training has led him to work as an architectural photographer and to publish his photographs in numerous national and international media. In 2010 he self-published the book of photographs Home, winner of the Laus Silver award and part of the exhibition of self-published books, Books That Are Photos, Photos That Are Books, at the Reina Sofía Museum and Art Centre.
His work La última piedra, a subjective look at the anthropization of the landscape as a result of the extraction of marble from the mountains of Carrara, won him first prize in The Ground, the Septenio 2012 International Photographic Contest, organized by the Government of the Canary Islands.
The following year, the Paris Institute of Heritage and Architecture commissioned him to take the photographs for the monograph Portrait de ville: Barcelone, a work with which he was invited to the Visa pour l’Image festival. Then, in 2014, he was a finalist in the Aena Foundation Photography Award and won a LUX Gold Award of the AFP.
He has taken part in European art events such as Art Fair Cologne and Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam with his photographs of Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, closed for decades. He was also chosen by Sant Andreu Contemporani to participate in the group exhibition El gran Tour (Miquel Casablancas Award, 2017). In 2018, the Urban Landscape Institute of Catalonia awarded him second prize in the Everyday Landscapes Photography Competition, and in 2019 he took part in the group exhibition The Vernacular of Landscape at the Usagi Gallery in New York.
More recently he was a finalist in the 2020 Vila Casas Foundation Photography Prize and the 2020 Aena Photography Prize, and winner of the Photography Competition at the 15th Spanish Architecture and Urban Planning Biennial (BEAU 2021).
Simona Rota
Romania, 1979
Simona Rota studied Political Science at the University of Bucharest and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2001), and Photography at the Efti School of Photography in Madrid (2010). She combines her photographic side with work in the communication sector. She is the author of the books Instant Village (Fabulatorio, 2020), Missbehave (Vibok Works, 2013) and Ostalgia (Fabulatorio, 2013). The latter, of which Rota is also co-editor, won the Best Photography Book Award at PHotoESPAÑA 2014 and the 2014 Design & Art Direction In Book Award, and was chosen by the International Center of Photography in New York as one of the top ten photobooks of 2013. In her personal work, her favourite themes are the territory altered by human intervention, the relations of tension between space and its inhabitant, and architecture as a form of expression of power, memory and identity. The commissions she undertakes are reportages of architecture and the city for architecture magazines and studios, and photographic documentation for public bodies such as the Architecture Museum of Vienna. Her work has been shown at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Quito, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Fundació Foto Colectania in Barcelona, Kursala in Cádiz, Sevastopol Art Museum, Stadtmuseum Graz, Architektur Zentrum Wien, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, the Museo Reina Sofía de Madrid and at numerous festivals and fairs such as Fotofever Paris 17, PHotoESPAÑA 14, Vienna Art Week 12, Scan Tarragona 12, Fotonoviembre, etc. Outstanding personal shows include those at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Madrid, PHotoESPAÑA 2014 and Fotonoviembre 2013. Also of note is her participation in the group shows Zoom! Picturing Architecture and the City, at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2015), together with Wolfgang Tillmans, Roman Bezjak and Livia Corona, among others, and Photobooks. Here and Now, at Foto Colectania Foundation (2014), where she exhibited as a member of the “new Spanish photobook phenomenon”. Some of her works have been included in the collections of Foto Colectania, Carl Aignier Eikon, Stadtmuseum Graz and Kursala.