Laia Abril

Laia Abril (1986) is a documentary photographer raised in Barcelona. Currently she is working as a staff photographer and Consultant Photo Editor at COLORS Magazine combining with her freelance career and personal long-term project about Eating Disorders. Her work has been published in different magazines as The Sunday Times Magazine, D Repubblica, Ojo de Pez, Le Monde, FT, PDN, Burn Magazine, GUP, The British Journal of Photography, Esquire or COLORS Magazine where she is a member of the editorial team since she enrolled FABRICA - the Artists Residency of the Benetton Research Centre in Italy - in 2009. After finishing her degree in Journalism and studied photography workshops at the ICP in New York City; she decided to focus her photography in telling intimate stories which raises uneasy realities related with femininity. In 2009 and 2010 she was a finalist of the Ian Parry, participating in the exhibition at the Getty Gallery in London both years, first with her project on the young lesbian community in Brooklyn, and then with 'The Last Cabaret' about a sex club in Barcelona. Her body of work has been exhibited and appraised mostly in Italy, Spain, Poland, London and New York. In 2010 she joined the agency Reportage by Getty as an emerging talent and selected at Plat(t)form Winterthur PhotoMuseum 2012. Three years ago she starts a long-term project about Eating Disorders, with the First Chapter: 'A Bad day' a multimedia focus in the daily life of a young girl struggling with bulimia. The piece has been featured internationally on several media and selected at the NY Photo Festival 2011 or 3rd Lumix PhotoFestival in Hanover among others. In 2012 she releases her self-published fanzine, 'Thinspiration', the Second Chapter of the Eating Disorders series, which explores the use of photography in the Pro-Ana websites, highlighted as one of the best books of the year and exhibited in many festivals. The photographic project was also finalist at the Burn Emerging Photography Fun in 2012, shortlisted at Fotovisura Grant 2013 and selected as a jury choice award at Santa Fe Center 2013. Most recently has been exhibited in the collective show 'From Here On' in Barcelona and in the Lodz FotoFestiwal 2013 in Poland. Currently she is working on her book project 'The Epilogue', the Third Chapter, which documents the aftermath, after the death because Eating Disorders, on the indirect victims; patients' families and social environments.