ABOUT

HÉCTOR MEDIAVILLA (1970)

Héctor Mediavilla is a visual storyteller resident in Barcelona. The focus of his work addresses issues relating to the construction of identity in unique human groups. He currently spends much of his time devoted to projects with moving images. In 2013 he directed, for instance, the award-winning short documentary film about sapeurs Brazzaville for Guinness that deserved a Grand Clio in NY and silvers in Cannes Lions and British Arrows.

He has a degree in Business Administration and an MBA from ESADE (Barcelona). Later he completed a postgraduate degree in Cultural Management from the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona).

He has been a documentary photographer for over 15 years, with long-term projects such a S.A.P.E. in Congo, Penélopes in México, Coca is not Cocaine in Bolivia or Another Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. At first, he wanted to denounce injustices, eventually interest shifted towards understanding the human condition. 

His photographs have been published in international magazines like Colors, Geo, New York Times, Business Week, Time, Photo, Esquire, Gatopardo, Etiqueta Negra and many others.

As a photographer, Mediavilla has received awards in competitions such as Picture of the Year International (POYI), Hansel Mieth Award, Center Project Competition, London Festival of Photography, International Photography Awards (IPA), Fotopres, Kaunas Photo Festival, Talents PhotoEspaña and CoNCA among others. His photo essays have been screened at festivals worldwide.

His pictures have been exhibited around the globe in places like the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Vitra Museum, Paris Photo 2013, Dapper Museum in Paris, der Frankfurt Weltkulturen Museum, the French Institute in Kinshasa, the Cultural Center of Spain (Mexico, Honduras, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador) and the Barcelona Maritime Museum.

Since 2005 he has conducted several photography workshops in Barcelona and abroad like with the  "Program to Support the Visual Arts" of the European Union teaching young Congolese photographer. Lately he has discovered the power of working with groups of people at risk of exclusion, giving them voice through social photography workshops.

In 2013, the Parisian publisher “Intervalles” launched, the first monograph of Mediavilla, SAPE, which collects photographs and testimonies from Congolese sapeurs both in Brazzaville and Paris since 2003 and received the prestigious Grand Prix du livre de mode 2014 from the University of Lyon, Louis Lumière, which recognizes SAPE as the best book of the year related to fashion, published in France.