Gisela Volá by bus

In an interview for P360P, Gisela Volá talks about the call for “E·CO/22” “D[E·CO]NSTRUIR LA MIRADA, Contemporary Visual Narratives in Gender Key” in its fourth edition that she herself presides, about her work in a collective, the importance of gender photography and the presence of women photojournalists in Latin America. 

Gisela Volá is a member of Vistprojects, a platform for Latin American visual narratives created by Claudi Carreras and from where the “E·CO/22” meeting is held.

Co-founder of the SUB collective and later a photography cooperative founded in 2001, in Argentina, which was recently hit by the economic and political crisis of Fernando de la Rúa, she specializes in two types of photojournalism: collective work and gender photography. She claims that working in this way opens up the possibility of approaching everyday issues from an identity that goes beyond binary forms.

For more than twenty years he has been dedicated to exhibiting his documentary photography work, a task that is reflected in the projects he carries out and directs in photography, cultural management, radio and education. 

He believes that photojournalism is at a time of many questions, both in the ways of doing photojournalism and in the ways in which photojournalism is seen in different formats. 

Gisela Volá, convinced that women have begun to stop being afraid, says that female photojournalists in particular have begun to reflect on the limits imposed on their work, losing their fear of saying “this is unfair.”

“Cabalgata nocturno”, “Deseos”, “15”, “Gilda la milagrosa”, “Extraño paraíso” and “Ariel” are the projects presented on her personal page and whose themes that unite them are sexual identity, youth, desires for life and the customs that define the human being in society from their sexuality.

However, some of his strongest work has been done in the SUB Photographers Cooperative, consolidated in 2004. Its photodocumentary work is mainly developed in a collective way, collaborating in international media such as The New York Times (USA), Le Monde, Le Monde Magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Figaro (France), Petra magazine, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit (Germany); Interviú magazine, Igandea (Spain); Gatopardo magazine (Mexico); El Nuevo Día newspaper (Puerto Rico), among others. In addition, SUB has been awarded various prizes such as the POYi Contest Prize (Picture of the Year Latin America) in the Middle Class category for "Behind Closed Doors" in 2013 and the POYi Contest Prize (Picture of the Year Latin America) in the "Portrait of Daily Life" category in 2011, among many others. 2018. SUB is currently part of the FoLa (Latin American Photo Library) collection.

Gisela: I was very struck by the story of Gilda la Milagrosa, which tells the story of a teacher who one day went to a cumbia contest and became a cumbia singer who was very important in Argentina, Bolivia and Peru and who later became a popular saint. She was a woman who broke many roles within the cumbia scene, which is also a very sexist context, very disputed with men and where women are objectified by body stereotypes. Gilda was a woman who broke a lot of that because she did not correspond to the stereotypes of the time. However, she had incredible, profound lyrics. Having been a kindergarten teacher, she came from a different environment.

C: Why is it important to address the issue of gender from a documentary photography perspective? 

Gisela: Well, identity is something very important because it is from there that we communicate and relate to others.

The construction of identity has to do with certain binary norms of masculinity and femininity that in some way condition the way we inhabit society, the way we inhabit our contexts. 

I think it is very important to work on a call for proposals on these types of topics because it leads us to think about these changes in the times we are experiencing, where in recent years the most important thing that has happened is to problematize life. 

In my opinion, what the feminist movements of recent years have done is just that: problematize everyday life, the way we relate to each other, problematize the inequalities of domestic life, motherhood, family, work spaces and the decision about how we perceive ourselves according to our sex, gender and all the possibilities that arise when one asks why things are this way or are based on these structures.

C: About women photojournalists

Gisela: I think that what we photojournalists have begun to do is stop being a little afraid and that fear has led us to start talking and reflecting on our work practices and our ties to the media and that has undoubtedly led us to realize that there is too much tolerance in certain areas, such as realizing that our salaries are lower, until we are sent to do work that does not have as much impact as it should just because we are women or because we do not have the benefits or the same rights as men in the workplace such as the media, the press, the editorial space. 

We have begun to realize that our positions have always been very passive in terms of the man's gaze, always occupying administrative positions, not at the front lines of battle, especially in photojournalism. I believe that women are strong, talented, and that we have generated a lot. I would even dare to say that we have developed deeper things because we have to make ourselves count twice as much to prove that we can do the same as men.

C: Where is photojournalism going? 

Gisela: I think that we are in a time of many questions. The latest competitions such as the World Press Photo show this, as well as the need for openness not only in how we look at photographs but also in terms of themes and how we engage with themes. This gives me a lot of hope, it gives me an expectation regarding more open formats that break the rigid forms that previously existed within the genre of photojournalism. I think it's great that the rules that have existed for thirty or twenty years are starting to change.

About the call

The open call led by Gisela Volá "E·CO/22" has a registration period from March 20 to April 20 at 11:59 p.m. Mexico time, and seeks to support the development of projects by collectives or collaborative groups based in Latin America that address issues with a gender perspective. 

The fourth edition of the Ibero-American Collectives Meeting, “D[E·CO]NSTRUIR LA MIRADA, Contemporary Visual Narratives in Gender Key” offers its winners:

• A €5000 Production Grant for the realization of each of the 8 projects selected in the Open Call.

• An Open Training space through Instagram Live and YouTube chats.

• A Specific Training space for the 8 collectives or collaborative work groups, consisting of virtual meetings with leaders from Latin America.

• The exhibition and dissemination of the works produced at E·CO/22 from the Vist Projects and AECID platforms.

The selection committee includes three researchers, curators and photographers from Latin America who specialize in editing, political photography, collective photography and curatorship: Andrea Jösch from Chile, Maíra Gamarra from Brazil and Julieta Escardó from Argentina.

Click here to read the complete call for proposals here.

For the registration form click here here.

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