A summer of photography gets under way in the capital, featuring more than 80 contemporary and historical exhibitions
PhotoEspaña, Spain’s premier festival of photography, has opened in Madrid and other locations across the country including Barcelona, Santander and Zaragoza. The capital is hosting more than 80 contemporary and historical exhibitions in a range of venues that include the grounds of the Royal Palace, the Prado, a former water tower and an old sawmill.
Top left: Adelita: She Was Not Only Brave She Was Beautiful, 2023. Top right: Adelita: I Would Follow Her by Ground and Sea, 2023. Above: Toward a History of African American Women on New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier, 2023. Photographs: Ayana V Jackson/Mariane Ibrahim.
Nosce te Ipsum (Know Thyself) at the National Museum of Anthropology showcases the work of the African American photographer and film-maker Ayana V Jackson, whose practice involves the creative use of archival documents and items for her artistic production.
In this, her first exhibition in Europe, the ironic referencing or quoting of existing imagery, for example her re-stagings of portraits of 19th-century Black horsewomen in the series You Forgot to See Me Coming, enable her to imaginatively address the representational legacies of colonialism and the Black diaspora. Her portraits of Adelitas – the name derives from that of Adela Velarde, the famed nurse of the Mexican revolution – engage with the often overlooked activities of African-descendant women during the uprising.
