VIST: Visual is Telling

VIST is a non-profit Foundation established in Latin America. Vist is a multiplatform content laboratory. We dedicated ourselves to the research, design, and development of contemporary visual narratives on social and cultural themes. Vist is an interdisciplinary meeting space to address the communication and reflection of contemporary problems through new narratives and visual tools, which provoke and promote a new way of understanding and thinking about the world in which we live.

We intend to contribute to an involved society, with informed opinions and a collaborative participation spirit, to generate new spaces for knowledge and reflection. We do research, content creation, and management. We use new communication strategies to promote new channels for groups that raise their voices.

We seek new perspectives to offer a more complex vision of social realities. We encourage the creation of photographic, video, sound, written, animation, interactive, and illustration projects on the themes we work on. We create collaborations with knowledge centers, universities, NGOs, government institutions for research and content creation. We disseminate our content and those of other creators through websites, social networks, and other digital platforms, installations in public spaces, and exhibition projects.

We generate meeting spaces to provoke reflection and constructive debate. We intend to make it easier for communities to generate their narratives and content. We promote the creation of meeting spaces that consolidate networks, we promote the exchange that contributes to dialogues.

Board of directors
Claudi Carreras
ES / Director
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Jorge Panchoaga
CO / Principal Officer / Project Manager
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Germán Rey
CO
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Gael Almeida
MX
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Cristina de Middel
ES
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Investigation Team
Musuk Nolte
PE / Environmental Themes Advisor
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Maya Goded
MX
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Gisela Volá
ARG / Education Area Director
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Comunication Team
Sebastián Hacher
ARG / Communication Director
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Marcela Vallejo
CO / Pedagogical coordination and Communication
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Luciana De Michellis
ARG
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Julia Dominzain
ARG
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Vanina De Monte
ARG / Design Director
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Accounting Department
Oswaldo Arturo Romero Medina
CO
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Nadia Castillo
CO
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Cristina de Middel

Spain

Cristina's work investigates the always ambiguous relationship between photography and truth. Combining documentary and conceptual approaches, Cristina plays with the reconstruction of archetypes and stereotypes that help to blur the separation between reality and fiction to open the debate about the official versions and the biased description that photography offers of the world.

After 10 years working as a press photographer, Cristina (born in Spain and now based in Brazil), turned away from the documentary gaze and launched The Afronauts, a series that narrated the exploits of the Zambian space program in 1964 through posts on scene and archival backgrounds. The success of this series consolidated her language and led her to publish more than thirteen works and obtain recognitions such as the Infinity Award granted by the International Center of photography in NYC in 2012 or the National Photography Award in 2017.

Germán Rey

Colombia

University professor and famous rapporteur for conferences and seminars. He has published, among other books: Oficio de equilibrista. 21 casos periodísticos, Los ejercicios del ver. Hegemonía audiovisual y ficción televisiva, along with Jesús Martín Barbero, Balsas y medusas, on politics in the media, and Desde las dos orillas, on the right to information. He has been an advisor to the Ministry of Culture of Colombia in investigations related to the areas of communication, culture, cultural management and cultural industries. For this same institution, he coordinated and edited the Manual de Políticas Culturales (2009). He participated as a speaker at the First International Meeting of Experts on Cultural Cooperation in Madrid (UNESCO, 2007). In 2006 he was the Academic Director of the Cultural Industries Seminar held in Buenos Aires. He was director of the Attic Center of the Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá, the first center of technological information and communication resources in Latin America for the development of education.

Gael Almeida

México

Since 2017 he is regional leader of the National Geographic Society of Latin America. Gael Almeida studied Political Science and Public Administration at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. In addition, he obtained a Master's Degree in Sciencein Conservation Biology from University College London [3].

Almeida has worked with Civil Society Organizations, Academics and International Cooperation Agencies in the areas of institutional development,fundraising, strategic planning and communication. Its focus is on the area of environment and marine conservation [3].

Among the tasks she has held are: She was Director of the El Mangle AC Institute in La Paz; She was Director of Development and Institutional Liaisonof the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature; she also served as Coordinator of International Affairs in the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity in Mexico, among other positions.

Gisela Volá

Education Area Director
Argentina

Photographer, teacher, and co-founder of Sub Cooperativa de Fotógrafos, a photography cooperative founded in 2004 in Buenos Aires that works on creating a collective identity and conducts visual research that is published in the media, exhibitions and photobooks. Her photographic essays address contemporary social issues in relation to identity, memory and territory from a gender perspective. She is a member of Foto Féminas, Women Photograph and is a 6x6 Global Talent Program Nominator for the World Press Photo.

Maya Goded

Comunication Team
México

Through her photography, films, and video-installations, Maya Goded addresses the topics of female sexuality, gender violence, female healers and defenders of their territories whose refusal to submit represents a threat to the establishment by the concepts of power and control. Her constant questioning of preconceived ideas, her efforts to reveal little-known realities, her talent to celebrate otherness and a humanism that transcends social barriers have all translated into international awards and acknowledgements.

The prize Prince Claus Fund (Ámsterdam), el J. Simon Guggenheim, el Premio Eugene Smith (both in New York), el Mother Jones Fund (San Francisco), la Medalla al Mérito Fotográfico (México), amongst others.

Plaza de la Soledad–her full-length documentary– had received many awards, such as: the Special jury prize in the Festival del Nuevo Cine Iberoamericano (Havana, Cuba), Best Direction in the Festival Cinema Tropical (New Yorkew ), Best Documentary in the Guanajuato International Film Festival (Mexico); the OCELOT Award for Outstanding Documentary (Tucson, USA), amongst others.

Musuk Nolte

Environmental Themes Advisor
Perú

Born in Mexico and nationalized Peruvian, Musuk works beteween the documentary photography, the art, and the edition. He studied at the Centro de la Imagen in Lima, has been awarded with a FONCA fellowship, Mexico. He was selected for the World Press Photo Master Class in Latam (2015) and received the Magnum Foundation’s Emergency Fund grant (2017). Currently is a National Geographic Explorer (2019), Pulitzer Center grantee (2020). Since 2014 he has been the director / editor of KWY Ediciones, an independent publishing platform geared towards editing and co-creating projects by Latin American authors.

Claudi Carreras

Director
Spain

Independent curator, editor and cultural mobilizer, Claudi has held multiple solo and group exhibitions that have toured around the world, in more than 50 cities on four continents.

He was the director of the First Encounter of Ibero-American Photographic Collectives held in São Paulo in 2008 and directed the E.CO project of the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2010, an exhibition and reflection project that generated the first Encounter of Photographic Collectives in Europe and Latin America. He has also been an advisor to the Latin American Photography Forum in São Paulo since it was founded and was general curator of the Paraty em foco Festival in Rio de Janeiro from 2011 to 2015, and curator for Latin America at the PhotoQuai biennial in 2013 and 2015 (Museum Quai Branly, Paris). He was also curator of the Laberinto de miradas project (2008-2011), a journey through documentary photography in Ibero-America, a traveling exhibition that toured at 19 countries.

As a jury, he has participated in World Press Photo, POY Latam, Premio Gabo de la Fundación para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano en Colombia, Premio Nacional de Fotografía de España, Sony World Photography Awards and various biennials and competitions. He is a founding partner of Editora Madalena, in Brazil and collaborates with international publishers such as RM or Gustavo Gili where he has participated in various editorial projects.

In 2015 and 2016, he coordinated the activities related to the Visual Creation of the Secretaría de Cultura of Quito for the UN Habitat III project. He is currently director of the VIST platform for the production, exhibition and dissemination of contemporary visual narratives in different formats and director of the African-American and Drugs, Politics and Violence project.

Jorge Panchoaga

Principal Officer / Project Manager
Colombia

Colombian anthropologist and photographer, Jorge investigates the relationship of the human beings with their environment. His work explores the intimate human experience that arises from the interaction we have with nature, inhabiting and signifying it. His photographs have been published in media such as The New York Times, National Geographic, El País de España, L'oeil De la Photographie de Francia, among others.

He has been editor of the book La Fotografía está en la Calle (2014); co-author of Fiestas de San Pacho (2014), author of the book Savage (2018). Today he is a National Geographic Society Fellow Explorer (2020), Fujifilm Global Representative Photographer and Director of the Dulce y Salada multi-platform project (2018).

Marcela Vallejo

Pedagogical coordination and Communication
Colombia

Colombian anthropologist. Her work is focused on urban and ethnographic studies, whose main interest is focused on local empowerment processes through the appropriation and resignification of space in cultural practices and expressions. Her experience is traced through ethnographic research projects with indigenous, Afro-descendant, urban communities and with LBGTI populations in ruralized contexts. She has been part of collectives and interdisciplinary teams that, from collaborative research, seek to create spaces for conversation and debate with alternative forms of communication, participation and education, by creating new spaces for dialogue and collective learning.

Paula Betancur

Administración
Colombia

Photographer and photography teacher at EIA University, Paula does both commercial and personal projects. She studied Photography, is a Textile Engineer and Specialist in business management and works in the management of academic and cultural projects. Together with four other women, she created the Casa PAZaTIEMPO, foundation focused on recreation, training and entrepreneurship in vulnerable communities.

Her work El Abuelo was exhibited in theBiblioteca Pública Piloto for an event for new Antioquian photographers organized together with the Museo de Arte Moderno of Medellín and the Museo de Antioquia and in the exhibition Sony World Photography Awards in the Latin American professional category.

Gonzalo Golpe

España

Graduated in Hispanic Philology, specialized in Latin American Literature and graduated in Edition and Publication of Texts from the University of Deusto. He is an art editor and graphic production specialist. He is a teacher in different schools (EFTI, IED, Lens).

From 2010 to 2103 he directed Siete de un Golpe, a photobook self-publishing workshop and editorial and graphic exhibition production. He is part of La Troupe, a group of professionals in the graphic sector dedicated to author work. www.la-troupe.com

He collaborates as editor in The Portable Photo, a collection of author applications by contemporary Spanish photographers promoted by the Espada y Santa Cruz studio.

Nicolás Janowski

Argentina

Visual artist with a photographic base, anthropologist and curator born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Most of his projects explore the link with the territory, the sense of belonging and identities from an explicit subjectivity. The idea of historical context is central when dealing with his stories.

His previous projects have been developed from a transmedial perspective, using different narrative supports that complement and articulate his stories. His most recent projects, in teaching and in his own artistic practice, are based on collaborative and experimental premises. His most recent work is mainly sculptural, painting and soundscapes.

Sebastian Hacher

Communication director
Argentina

Journalist, writer and consultant in User Experience Design (UX) and Conversational Design. She specializes in building digital narratives, transmedia storytelling, and designing conversational interfaces.

He wrote the books Gauchito Gil (2008), Sangre salada (2011) and Cómo burirar a un padre desaparecido (2012). He was editor-in-chief of Infojus Noticias and audience editor of Cosecha Roja/Revista Anfibia. He collaborates in the transformation and digital convergence of media. Escrwas in dozens of media outlets in Argentina and Latin America.

He teaches in the Master's Degree in Chronicle of the National University of San Martín and in the Creative Writing career of the National University of the Arts. Between 2014 and 2019 he was a tutor in the Red Harvest/Open Society Scholarship, where he trained more than one hundred journalists from Latin America in digital narratives.

Luciana De Michellis

Argentina

Photographer, lives and works in La Plata, Argentina. He studied Communication at the NationalUniversity of La Plata. Between 2013 and 2019 he created the photographic archive of the School of Art and Crafts of the Argentine Theater of La Plata. In 2020 he participated in the Valparaíso International Photography Festival with Cristina de Middel, in Image Threads Collective (USA) with Juan Orrantia, and obtained a scholarship in Photojournalism at the Black Kamera school in Bilbao (ES). She is currently a fellow of the annual Photobook program at Campo.lat (MX-ARG). Since 2020, she has been promoting Frieza,a Latin Americanphotography platform: there she coordinates the Fiction and Simulation workshop, where she disseminates authors who use fiction as an engine of creation and production.

Julia Dominzain

Communication Team

Julia Muriel Dominzain . Journalist. He was a correspondent in Moscow for the international news networkRT (Russia Today) from 2016 until 2019, when he returned to Argentina.

She was an editor at the judicial journalism site Cosecha Roja and also collaborated for different national and international media. She is a podcast producer, in what shearticipa as a screenwriter, producer and researcher.

Vanina De Monte

Design Director
Argentina

Graphic Designer in Visual Communication. In 1998 began her professional career at the Toscano Diseño studio in Paraná (Entre Ríos, Argentina) and worked as Teaching Assistant and Chief of Practical Studies of ‘Typography’ and ‘Expressive Media’ at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Santa Fe, Argentina). In 2001 he moved to Barcelona where he was part of the Design Department of the ‘R&W ‘and ‘Loop Comunicación’ agencies. Between 2008 and 2019 she worked as Art Director of the John Doe agency and, since 2007, she has worked in collaboration with the photographer Gustavo Germano. She currently works as an independent designer for different institutions, companies and professionals in Spain, Argentina, Australia and the United States.

Oswaldo Arturo Romero Medina

Accounting Department
Colombia

Professional in Public Accounting, with extensive experience in the accounting and financial area, with leadership and teamwork skills, with extensive work experience that supports the commitment to the functions in charge.

Nadia Castillo

Accounting Department
Colombia

Administrative assistant with experience in managing productive, commercial, individual and collective projects, developed on a smaller scale; payroll management, budgets, cash flow, capacity in public management, conflict management and work with young people; production and development of activities of a social nature, willingness to perform as a dynamizer of events and collective dynamics. Student of social communication and journalism.