AwardApril 1, 2021
Mayra Martell, Ankaria Photo International Award
Documentary photographer Mayra Martell (Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 1979) won the first edition of the Ankaria Photo International Award, organized by the Fundación Ankaria to recognize the work in photography of artists from around the world.
The Ankaria Photo award is endowed with 3,000 euros and a residence grant in Barcelona directed by the Barcelona artist Joan Fontcuberta. In its first edition, it received 200 proposals from 29 countries.
The second prize was awarded to Jon Gorospe (1986, Vitoria) for his project Noraezean (a Basque term that means “adrift”).
Since 2017, Mayra Martell has been working, in the awarded project, around the Mexican region of Sinaloa and the world of drug trafficking and its “lifestyles, values, expressions, music, and mythologies built on an aspirational model for many people in that region.”
The investigation began by focusing on the “buchonas” (women linked to the world of drug trafficking) and observing their Instagram profiles. Later, it became fieldwork carried out in the Sinaloan city of Culiacán and taking these same women as a model.
Mayra Martell presents her fascination for these women’s lifestyle, their multiple plastic surgeries, and their way of dressing, in which they express an extraordinary preference for luxury brands. It constitutes an investigation of beauty as an element of power and selfie as a representation tool. From her experience during the realization of this project, Martell said she experienced “the swing of terror as a duality of beauty.”
Mayra Martell has developed her documentary work mainly in Latin American regions with the theme of enforced disappearance. Her work has been exhibited in Spain, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, France, Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, the United States, among other countries.
The jury for the Ankaria Photo International Award was chaired by Ricardo Martí Fluxá, president of the Fundación Ankaria; Saleta Rosón Cedrón, patron of the Fundación Ankaria; José María Luna, director of the Public Agency for the management of Pablo Picasso’s Birthplace, the Collection of the Museo Ruso and the Centre Pompidou of the Malaga City Council and patron of the Fundación Ankaria; Joan Fontcuberta, photographer, lecturer, researcher, and essayist; Joana Hurtado, director of Fabra i Coats, Barcelona; Sema D’Acosta, curator of the First Edition of Ankaria Photo International Award for Photography of the XXI Century; and Isabel Elorrieta, Director of the Fundación Ankaria.
The Ankaria Photo award is endowed with 3,000 euros and a residence grant in Barcelona directed by the Barcelona artist Joan Fontcuberta. In its first edition, it received 200 proposals from 29 countries.
The second prize was awarded to Jon Gorospe (1986, Vitoria) for his project Noraezean (a Basque term that means “adrift”).
Since 2017, Mayra Martell has been working, in the awarded project, around the Mexican region of Sinaloa and the world of drug trafficking and its “lifestyles, values, expressions, music, and mythologies built on an aspirational model for many people in that region.”
The investigation began by focusing on the “buchonas” (women linked to the world of drug trafficking) and observing their Instagram profiles. Later, it became fieldwork carried out in the Sinaloan city of Culiacán and taking these same women as a model.
Mayra Martell presents her fascination for these women’s lifestyle, their multiple plastic surgeries, and their way of dressing, in which they express an extraordinary preference for luxury brands. It constitutes an investigation of beauty as an element of power and selfie as a representation tool. From her experience during the realization of this project, Martell said she experienced “the swing of terror as a duality of beauty.”
Mayra Martell has developed her documentary work mainly in Latin American regions with the theme of enforced disappearance. Her work has been exhibited in Spain, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, France, Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, the United States, among other countries.
The jury for the Ankaria Photo International Award was chaired by Ricardo Martí Fluxá, president of the Fundación Ankaria; Saleta Rosón Cedrón, patron of the Fundación Ankaria; José María Luna, director of the Public Agency for the management of Pablo Picasso’s Birthplace, the Collection of the Museo Ruso and the Centre Pompidou of the Malaga City Council and patron of the Fundación Ankaria; Joan Fontcuberta, photographer, lecturer, researcher, and essayist; Joana Hurtado, director of Fabra i Coats, Barcelona; Sema D’Acosta, curator of the First Edition of Ankaria Photo International Award for Photography of the XXI Century; and Isabel Elorrieta, Director of the Fundación Ankaria.
