Lys
Arango

Lys Arango

biography

Lys Arango is a Spanish documentary photographer born in Madrid and based in Paris. She joined Agence VU’ in 2023.

Motivated by social issues, she holds a degree in International Relations with a specialization in Armed Conflict and Peace Process Studies from the London School of Economics and a master’s degree in Journalism from Madrid’s Complutense University.

Since 2016, she has worked on the scene of numerous humanitarian and food emergencies around the world for international NGOs such as Action contre la Faim and Médecins Sans Frontières. In 2019, her work evolves towards a dialogue between writing and documentary photography: a framework that allows her to immerse herself at length in the social issues she tackles.

She then developed a personal project on food insecurity and the specific realities of humanitarian emergencies in Guatemala (Until the corn grows back). For three years, she gathered stories, testimonies and images from a region marked by extreme poverty, compounded by migration and ecological challenges.

Since 2022, a second part of this work on food insecurity in the world has been underway in France, a developed country known for its social rights, with the support of BnF’s Grande Commande Photographique (Dans le creux).

Meanwhile, with The river ran black, Lys Arango spent two years and seven trips to Asturias, the land of her paternal family, to tell the intimate story of Spain’s last coal miners and the pride of a working-class community.

Her work has won major awards, including Pictures of the Year (2023) and the National Geographic Award at the Eddie Addams Workshop (2021). Her photographs have been exhibited at numerous festivals, including Les Femmes s’exposent (Normandy, France), Galerie Leica, Horizonte Festival (Zingst, Germany), Zoom Festival (Quebec, Canada), Helsinki Photo Festival (Finland) and Yeast Photo Festival (Puglia, Italy), and published by the international press: CNN, The Independent, BBC News, El País Semanal, La Vanguardia, Marie Claire Magazine, El Mundo.

Series

Dans le creux, 2022-2023

Series | They wait in a square, as they do every day, to receive the food aid parcel offered by an association. They include families, single men and women, the elderly and students.

The river ran black, 2020-2022

Series | My father grew up in these narrow valleys surrounded by mountains, where the river ran black and where the sound of the siren announced the descent of the workers into the depths of the Earth.

Xiximai, 2021

Series | Xiximai, the goddess of famine, visits the houses of the Ch'orti 'Mayan people every year on the first of June. Families wait for her with food otherwise, she will leave them in poverty and the corn reserves will dwindle.

Until the corn grows back, 2019-2021

Series | Climate change is destroying the harvests of hundreds of thousands of small farmers, fuelling a humanitarian crisis: in Guatemala, one child in two suffers from chronic malnutrition, the highest rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dans le creux, 2022-2023

Series | They wait in a square, as they do every day, to receive the food aid parcel offered by an association. They include families, single men and women, the elderly and students.

The river ran black, 2020-2022

Series | My father grew up in these narrow valleys surrounded by mountains, where the river ran black and where the sound of the siren announced the descent of the workers into the depths of the Earth.

Xiximai, 2021

Series | Xiximai, the goddess of famine, visits the houses of the Ch'orti 'Mayan people every year on the first of June. Families wait for her with food otherwise, she will leave them in poverty and the corn reserves will dwindle.

Until the corn grows back, 2019-2021

Series | Climate change is destroying the harvests of hundreds of thousands of small farmers, fuelling a humanitarian crisis: in Guatemala, one child in two suffers from chronic malnutrition, the highest rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dans le creux, 2022-2023

Series | They wait in a square, as they do every day, to receive the food aid parcel offered by an association. They include families, single men and women, the elderly and students.

The river ran black, 2020-2022

Series | My father grew up in these narrow valleys surrounded by mountains, where the river ran black and where the sound of the siren announced the descent of the workers into the depths of the Earth.

Xiximai, 2021

Series | Xiximai, the goddess of famine, visits the houses of the Ch'orti 'Mayan people every year on the first of June. Families wait for her with food otherwise, she will leave them in poverty and the corn reserves will dwindle.

Until the corn grows back, 2019-2021

Series | Climate change is destroying the harvests of hundreds of thousands of small farmers, fuelling a humanitarian crisis: in Guatemala, one child in two suffers from chronic malnutrition, the highest rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.

exhibition

Until the Corn Grows Back (Guatemala) & The River Ran Black (Asturias)
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Al Majaz amphitheatre
Al majaz 3, Sharja 82828, Emirats Arabes Unis
—
Exhibition from 20 to 26 February 2025

More information

Awards

Pictures of the Year 

1st Prize, « Environmental Vision » categorie for her series « The river ran black »

2023

Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Radioscopie de la France 

Laureate for her series « Dans le creux »

2022