photo_talks: What Moves You?
Anita Pouchard Serra
Anita Pouchard Serra, an Open Society Foundation fellow and Pulitzer Center grantee, is a widely published visual storyteller with an anthropological outlook whose work focuses on societal issues, with a strong transdisciplinary approach. In 2015, Anita Pouchard Serra formally began her photography work on issues related to migration, identity, its spaces, and territories — a work that little by little also echoed her personal story. From her first project, “Latent Urbanities,” about the Calais refugee camp through to her most recent work in progress, “Reina, Abdelbaki and Me,” about her family story and the French-Algerian war, she examines the representation of migration, the migrant, and cultural hybridization in our society.
In her work, Anita wants to ask questions and investigate: How can you bring these stories closer to society and a general audience, already flooded by news and images? How can we help people see that migrants aren’t the “other” — someone distant — but rather someone closer to them? What is the place and responsibility of the image in the storytelling process of these vital issues?
Verónica Sanchis Bencomo leads the conversation and the Q&A after the presentation.
Anita Pouchard Serra is a French-Argentine photographer based in Buenos Aires and working mostly in Latin America. Her work focuses on current societal problems involving identity, migration, empowerment, and territory, with a strong transdisciplinary approach. She considers each project a laboratory to explore her photographic practice, from drawings to performance. She is a Pulitzer Center grantee and National Geographic Emergency Fund recipient (2020); a “We, Women” grantee by Women Photograph and United Photo Industries (2019); an Open Society Foundation “Moving Walls” fellow (2018); and a multiple IWMF (International Women’s Media Foundation) grantee. Her work has been published in Time, The New York Times, Le Monde, Bloomberg, Amnesty International, Days Japan, Wired, and Geo magazine among others and has exhibited her work in Argentina, France, Uruguay, Spain, and the United States. She has taught photojournalism in Argentina, France, the United States and El Salvador.
Anita teaches documentary storytelling and more for StrudelmediaLive.
anitapouchardserra.com
Verónica Sanchis Bencomo is a Spanish-Venezuelan photographer and curator based in New York. Her images have appeared in Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, Le Monde, Fortune, Monocle, and Nature magazine among other international media. In 2015, Verónica founded Foto Féminas — an online platform to promote the works of Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. She has also organised and produced photo exhibitions for Foto Féminas in Argentina, China, Guatemala, Peru, Chile, and Mexico. In 2016, she started Foto Féminas’ library which has been displayed and exhibited at different art institutions and festivals in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Verónica has been working with Latin American photographers since 2012 when she first started interviewing photographers for different online and offline publications. She has often served as a juror and nominator at international competitions including World Press Photo (The Netherlands, 2022); Prix Pictet Award (London, 2021), WYNG Foundation (Hong Kong), and Ballarat International Foto Biennale (Australia, 2019) among others.
