- Over 63,000 images depicting life in quarantine in Spain were sent into the contest
- The ten winning photographs will be awarded €500
ACCIONA and PHotoESPAÑA have selected the ten best photographs from the #PHEdesdemibalcón (which translates to #FromMyBalcony) contest. This art initiative received over 63,000 images depicting what quarantine in Spain looks like and the daily battle against Covid19.
The award-winners - Teresa Aquesolo, Javi Burguiño, Carma Casula, Ana Corrales Paredes, Sara Gómez Cortijo, Aldair Mejia, Eduardo Nave, Énkar Neil, Maria Puga Sánchez and Eduardo Rivas Muñoz - will receive a €500 prize, and their photographs will be posted on ACCIONA and PHotoESPAÑA’s websites and social media pages.
The competition’s panel of judges included experts in photography, art, photojournalism and marketing: Isabel Gistau (Director of ACCIONA's Global Brand), Claude Bussac (Director General of Art and Festivals at La Fábrica), Javier Díaz Guardiola (Director of Art, Architecture and Design at Abc Cultural) and Laura Manzano (Director of Fine Arts at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid).
To choose the winning images, the jury analyzed how successfully each photograph was able to envision and depict the main changes and challenges that confinement has meant to both individuals and to society as a whole.
The selected photographs, taken in Madrid, Barcelona, Santander, Valencia and Logroño, reflect both routine everyday moments (a video call, children's games, new hygiene guidelines...) and also more abstract and dreamlike visions of the relationship between city and environment, as well as individuals and our relationship with nature or technology. Other recurring themes in the images include support for healthcare workers, old age and urban views.
All of the images submitted to the contest are available on Instagram with the hashtag #PHEdesdemibalcón. The images selected as finalists in the competition are also featured on PHotoESPAÑA’s photography web.
PHotoESPAÑA is a photography festival held annually in Madrid since 1998 and has since become an important international event in the fine arts scene. The festival gathers photographs of the highest the quality, all the while promoting initiatives to educate on the cultural and aesthetic value of photography in society, including the initiative #PHEdesdemibalcón.
ACCIONA and PHotoESPAÑA have carried out various other joint projects linked to showcasing some of the main challenges our society faces through art, such as, in this case, the fight against Covid19. Another example would be climate change, when the groups joined forces for the photographic and audiovisual S.M.A.R.T exhibition, which was one of the main activities of the last edition of the PHotoESPAÑA Festival.