Adriana
Lestido

Adriana Lestido

biography

Adriana Lestido was born in 1955 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She graduated in photography and then, for fifteen years, from 1980 to 1995, she was a photojournalist for Argentinean newspapers.

From the beginning of her career, photography has always been a way to understand human relations.
She received the Hasselblad Award in 1991, the Mother Jones Foundation Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Adriana Lestido is considered as a great personality of Argentine culture and has been a tireless advocate for the women’s rights throughout her career.

“Adriana Lestido sees photography as an accompaniment to her life, to her analysis of society, to her condition as a woman in a sexist country.

She organizes projects, at a slow pace, that question in depth the world in which she lives. Whether it is the condition of women in prison or the relationship between mothers and daughters, she sets up devices for questioning daily life that reveal reality and require photography to analyze situations.

She captures the intense moments of inter-individual relations, which she then organizes as narratives that will serve to decipher a situation, to situate the issues at stake, to reveal the implications. In black and white, with a real humility in relation to what she deals with, she is deeply convinced by the necessity of a documentary photography that is anchored in the present. She focuses on developing issues that could not be understood without their social dimension. She questions in a global way the state of the world through particular stories.

As a witness above all, she endeavors to question, in images, the state of a society she is part of, which she neither wants to sublimate nor transform into a show, and she looks at a “non-spectacular” daily life, revealing its flaws and imbalances. She tells, with a rare visual simplicity, the pains, the difficulties, the ruptures of worlds that she accompanies with her calm and attentive rhythm. “

Series

Antártida, 2012

Série | As soon as she was selected for an artist residency from February to March 2012 in Antarctic, Adriana Lestido took it to heart and went to one end of the earth.

Mexico, 2010

Series | Mexico, Durango, october-november 2010

Argentina, Oil Yard, 2009

Series | Adriana Lestido went to the heart of Argentine Patagonia to document the daily life of oil workers.

El Amor, 2005

Series | Love is a diffuse, deep, and terribly personal feeling. Far from being a universal feeling, we find back ourselves alone with our questionings...

Villa Gesell, 2005

Series | It’s a sea shore. A place where we can forget ourselves and share our loneliness with elements. The beach becomes, under the Adriana Lestido’s camera, a plastic space, which carries in it many promises.

Difficult loves », Mothers and Daughters (1995-1999)

Series | In Mother and daughter’s photographer Adriana Lestido is searching her own traces in the features she captures, which are drawn for all women: repeated gestures that make only mothers out of us, only daughters, women born of a woman who expels us: love and helplessness.

Argentina - Women in Jail, 1993

Serie | The prison life is, in collective imaginary, an environment deeply masculin, virile, and even chauvinist. Yet, many women are imprisoned in the world. How do they conciliate their confinement and their woman, mother, and wife’s life?
Adriana Lestido documents this taboo issue and submerges us in a little-known environment.

Argentina, Teenage Mothers (1988-1989)

Serie | The teenage mother series, produced between 1988 and 1990, brings a sense of helplessness and discomfort - the result of a lack of social protection for low-income teenage girls when they become mothers.

Argentina, Children Hospital, (1986-1988)

Adriana Lestido made this report for two years, in order to document the daily lives of children in hospitals in Argentina.

Antártida, 2012

Série | As soon as she was selected for an artist residency from February to March 2012 in Antarctic, Adriana Lestido took it to heart and went to one end of the earth.

Mexico, 2010

Series | Mexico, Durango, october-november 2010

Argentina, Oil Yard, 2009

Series | Adriana Lestido went to the heart of Argentine Patagonia to document the daily life of oil workers.

El Amor, 2005

Series | Love is a diffuse, deep, and terribly personal feeling. Far from being a universal feeling, we find back ourselves alone with our questionings...

Villa Gesell, 2005

Series | It’s a sea shore. A place where we can forget ourselves and share our loneliness with elements. The beach becomes, under the Adriana Lestido’s camera, a plastic space, which carries in it many promises.

Difficult loves », Mothers and Daughters (1995-1999)

Series | In Mother and daughter’s photographer Adriana Lestido is searching her own traces in the features she captures, which are drawn for all women: repeated gestures that make only mothers out of us, only daughters, women born of a woman who expels us: love and helplessness.

Argentina - Women in Jail, 1993

Serie | The prison life is, in collective imaginary, an environment deeply masculin, virile, and even chauvinist. Yet, many women are imprisoned in the world. How do they conciliate their confinement and their woman, mother, and wife’s life?
Adriana Lestido documents this taboo issue and submerges us in a little-known environment.

Argentina, Teenage Mothers (1988-1989)

Serie | The teenage mother series, produced between 1988 and 1990, brings a sense of helplessness and discomfort - the result of a lack of social protection for low-income teenage girls when they become mothers.

Argentina, Children Hospital, (1986-1988)

Adriana Lestido made this report for two years, in order to document the daily lives of children in hospitals in Argentina.

Antártida, 2012

Série | As soon as she was selected for an artist residency from February to March 2012 in Antarctic, Adriana Lestido took it to heart and went to one end of the earth.

Mexico, 2010

Series | Mexico, Durango, october-november 2010

Argentina, Oil Yard, 2009

Series | Adriana Lestido went to the heart of Argentine Patagonia to document the daily life of oil workers.

El Amor, 2005

Series | Love is a diffuse, deep, and terribly personal feeling. Far from being a universal feeling, we find back ourselves alone with our questionings...

Villa Gesell, 2005

Series | It’s a sea shore. A place where we can forget ourselves and share our loneliness with elements. The beach becomes, under the Adriana Lestido’s camera, a plastic space, which carries in it many promises.

Difficult loves », Mothers and Daughters (1995-1999)

Series | In Mother and daughter’s photographer Adriana Lestido is searching her own traces in the features she captures, which are drawn for all women: repeated gestures that make only mothers out of us, only daughters, women born of a woman who expels us: love and helplessness.

Argentina - Women in Jail, 1993

Serie | The prison life is, in collective imaginary, an environment deeply masculin, virile, and even chauvinist. Yet, many women are imprisoned in the world. How do they conciliate their confinement and their woman, mother, and wife’s life?
Adriana Lestido documents this taboo issue and submerges us in a little-known environment.

Argentina, Teenage Mothers (1988-1989)

Serie | The teenage mother series, produced between 1988 and 1990, brings a sense of helplessness and discomfort - the result of a lack of social protection for low-income teenage girls when they become mothers.

Argentina, Children Hospital, (1986-1988)

Adriana Lestido made this report for two years, in order to document the daily lives of children in hospitals in Argentina.

Multimedia

Amores Dificiles, 2013

For three years Adriana Lestido photographed four mothers at their most intimate activities, women who are walking the path of life together, wothout any men in their family

Amores Dificiles, 2013

For three years Adriana Lestido photographed four mothers at their most intimate activities, women who are walking the path of life together, wothout any men in their family

Amores Dificiles, 2013

For three years Adriana Lestido photographed four mothers at their most intimate activities, women who are walking the path of life together, wothout any men in their family

Interviews

Somos memoria “Adriana Lestido”
Canal Encuentro
—
Interview by Gabriel Villazon, 2018

Interview of Adriana Lestido (in Spanish).

Adriana Lestido
Mas que mil palabras
—
2014

Interview of Adriana Lestido (in Spanish).

Entrevista: Adriana Lestido, las fotos imperdibles de su muestra en el MNBA
Télam
—
2013

Interview for her exhibition « Lo que se ve » at the National Art Museum (Argentina).

Lo Que Se Ve
IMAGINADAfilms
—
A film directed by David Rubio, 2008

For her exhibition at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Argentina (in Spanish).

books

Antártida Negra. Los diarios

Tusquets - 2017

Antártida Negra.

Capital Intelectual - 2017

Lo Que Se Ve

Capital Intelectual - 2013

Interior

Capital Intelectual - 2010

La obra

Capital Intelectual - 2010

Madres e Hijas

La Azotea Editorial - 2003

Mujeres Presas

Colección Fotógrafos Argentinos - 2001

Antártida Negra. Los diarios

Tusquets - 2017

Antártida Negra.

Capital Intelectual - 2017

Lo Que Se Ve

Capital Intelectual - 2013

Interior

Capital Intelectual - 2010

La obra

Capital Intelectual - 2010

Madres e Hijas

La Azotea Editorial - 2003

Mujeres Presas

Colección Fotógrafos Argentinos - 2001

Antártida Negra. Los diarios

Tusquets - 2017

Antártida Negra.

Capital Intelectual - 2017

Lo Que Se Ve

Capital Intelectual - 2013

Interior

Capital Intelectual - 2010

La obra

Capital Intelectual - 2010

Madres e Hijas

La Azotea Editorial - 2003

Mujeres Presas

Colección Fotógrafos Argentinos - 2001

awards

2010
Medalla del Bicentenario (Bicentennial Medal), Buenos Aires
Personalidad Destacada de la Cultura. (Notable Cultural Figure) Legislatura de B.A.

2009
Honor Prize of the Visual Arts National Fair, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Life Achievement Award, Argentine Art Critics Association, Buenos Aires

2007
Subsidy for creation. Fondo Metropolitano de las Artes. Buenos Aires

2003
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, subsidy for the publication, (USA)

2002
Konex Prize (Argentina)

1998
Leonardo Prize. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina)

1997
Mother Jones Prize (San Francisco, USA)

1995
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant (USA)

1991
Hasselblad Fellowship (Goteborg, Sweden)

1988
La Nacion Newspaper First Prize (Argentina)

1983
Human Rights First Prize, APDH (Argentina)