Selected PHotoESPAÑA 2019 international books

Book
Size: 22 x 18 x 2 cm
Number of pages: 46
Offset and inkjet printing

In the southern hemisphere of our planet heart here exists a fairly common specie of migratory bird who propagates so quickly that only a ruse of nature safeguards from a horrendous nightmare end.
Year they darken the heavens above Occidental Africa continent where they gather for their passage across the ocean to another continent.
Only one-tenth of them complete the crossing. Ninety per cent fall dead from exhaustion into the middle of the sea at the point where Scientists assume that millions of years ago the great land mass broke apart into two separate continents.
The birds beginning to circle frantically seeking their land where it no longer exists.
Their instinct preserved over millions of years guiding them to their exhausted to death. Only the most insensitive reach the shore.

“This series is not exactly a series, rather a mix of moments shared with women in different places around the world, women who make a living from dance and their bodies. Women 
who fly in search of freedom, their destiny, who fight close to the ground and to the movement of their body, in a continuous flow that makes them go around the world. A new species of migratory bird that fly across seas and oceans before arriving on dry land; some stay on an island, perhaps in Spain, in Ibiza for an indefinite period, others travel as far as Reno, in the ISA, in a Journey that takes them to and from Madrid, to a street that can only be named disillusion.

Siwah is also or perhaps above all, the story of a vision of a traveling woman who is a migratory bird, fling in search of a land that no longer exists, turning into the bodies and customs of other women. In the case, women who half work and half live in a clandestine Arabic dance venue, similar to a brothel. A meeting place. And also, a luxury sex shop on an island, because, as we know, islands are good asopping off points for birds on a short flight; another half-hidden meeting place. In these two places, and in many others (Reno, Mexico City...) there are various encounters, meetings between people, between glances, coincidences meetings on a journey. Ways of looking, living and viewing the world and to search for how to follow the flight of these women, photographer and dancers came together at a point in time. Just to recharge and recuperate, take some photographs, dance some eternal dances and continue on the journey that takes us back the same place: a destination within ourselves where only the most insensitive arrive.”
Rosa Olivares

Paola Bragado (Spain)

Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid. Master dregree at the Institut Superieur des Beaux-Arts st Luc in Brussels and the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Foundation Course at the Chelsea School of Arts in London. Scholarships from the Agency for Cooperation and Development of the Mexican Government for foreigners, years 2014/2015 and 2016/2017. Carpe Diem residence grants in Lisbon, Portugal and Entrecanales Foundation in Palma de Mallorca. Finalist of the Casa Velázquez Scholarship in Madrid (2014 and 2016) in Spain.
Prizes  awards at Art Center Alcobendas for the festival Photoespaña in Madrid 2014, Emerging talent of the newspaper El País and Mention of Honor Fnac Prize. Years 2012/13
Exhibitions at the Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico, College of Spain in Paris, Sala Alcalá 31, Centro Tomás y Valiente and Sala Matadero in Madrid, Center for the Arts of Gijón, Conde Duque and Reina Sofía Museums in Madrid, the Da2 Salamanca, in Spain, Costagnino Museum in Rosario, Argentina, Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile and Cultural Center of Spain in Amsterdam. I have exhibited at the Galeries La Taché and Carles Taché in Barcelona, ​​Vacío 9 and the New Galerie in Madrid, Usagexterne in Brussels and Paris and Butzlab in Hamburg and EXIT in Mexico City. In addition to participating in the Art fairs Arco and Madrid Photo in Spain, MacoFoto in Mexico, Voices Off in the Photo Meetings of Arles and Miami in the USA. Paola has been head of the laboratory for photographers Alberto García-Alix (2006/2009) and Chema Madoz (2010/2014)