Cristina García Rodero

«I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world with my camera and get immersed into the life of any town or city. What I regret is not having more years to tell more things». These are words by Cristina García Rodero (Puertollano, 1949), an independent and free photographer, a pioneer in her field. Her photographs are as powerful as they are real, the result of an intense passion for life and people: images that give us a glimpse into the lives and feelings of her subjects. A tireless explorer of emotions in their purest state, her curiosity and sensitivity is reflected in everything she does.

She graduated in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she began her tea- ching career in 1974, giving drawing classes in Arts and Crafts and, later, photography classes in Fine Arts, always combining her teaching assignments with her creative work After fifteen years researching rites, popular celebrations and religious and pagan traditions, in 1989 she rose to international fame with her magnificent ‘Hidden Spain’. Through extensive and un- hurried photo coverage carried out in the manner of a visual anthropologist, she eschews the cliché and the exotic to look behind the visible.

She considers herself a ‘creator’ and not a ‘photojournalist’. As such, she has collaborated with prestigious Spanish and foreign publications, received numerous awards and exhi- bited her work in many countries, already appearing in the collections of major museums around the world.

The winner of the National Photography Award, the Eugene Smith Foundation Award in New York and the Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, in 2005 she became the first Spanish artist to join the prestigious Magnum agency. ‘Lalibela, cerca del cielo’ (2017) is the latest of her 16 auteur books. This year, Seminci pays tribute to her with the Special Award for Artistic Creation, and screens the film ‘Cristina García Rodero: The Hidden Gaze’, by Carlota Nelson, in the Official Section, out of competition.