LABoral Centre for Art and Industrial Creation, in collaboration with the Gijón Port Authority, is organising the photography workshop “Miradas al Puerto”, led by José Manuel Ballester, on 19, 20 and 21 October, from 10am to 2pm and from 4pm to 6pm.
The activity offers an exploration of the Port of El Musel as a space for observation, visual research and contemporary creation, encouraging new perspectives on its architecture, activity and relationship with the maritime environment.
Who is it aimed at?
The call for participants is aimed at professional or emerging photographers resident in Spain. It is not aimed at amateur photographers without a track record or professional experience in photography.
Objectives and methodology
The workshop aims to offer participants the opportunity to explore and reinterpret the spaces of the Port of Gijón through photography, generating distinct visual perspectives on its architecture, port activity and relationship with the sea. The workshop will encourage visual experimentation, photographic storytelling and the conceptual development of the participating projects.
The workshop will combine theoretical sessions, fieldwork and individual and group tutorials. The sessions will include an analysis of the work of José Manuel Ballester, a review of key figures in landscape, architecture and contemporary photography, as well as guided tours and practical photography sessions in various locations within the Port of El Musel. Participants will develop a personal photographic project that will form part of the final exhibition at the Antigua Rula.
Participation in the workshop is free of charge. The organisers will cover the registration fee and the production costs of up to two final photographs per participant for the exhibition resulting from the workshop.
About the tutor
José Manuel Ballester (Madrid, 1960) is a leading figure in contemporary Spanish photography. Having graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1984, he began his career in painting, with a sustained interest in the techniques and compositions of the Italian and Flemish schools from the 15th to the 18th centuries. From 1990 onwards, his practice took a decisive turn by integrating painting and photography, focusing on an exploration of architectural space, light and silence.
Since then, Ballester has developed his own visual language in which the pictorial heritage of the Renaissance — perspective, composition and atmosphere — is reinterpreted through the medium of contemporary photography. His images dispense with the human figure to focus on absent presence, stillness and the memory of places. Museums, iconic buildings, industrial and urban spaces appear as settings for a poetics of emptiness and suspended time.
His work has been featured in major solo exhibitions such as Lugares de Paso (2003), Setting Out (2003) and Habitación 523 (2005), as well as in long-term projects such as Bosques de Luz. Her career has been recognised with awards such as the National Photography Prize (2010) and the ENAIRE Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award (2023). Ballester’s work forms part of the collections of international museums and institutions and constitutes a constant reflection on space, history and memory.
Terms and conditions, registration and further information:
The deadline for registration is 20 July
View the terms and conditions here
Registration form
For any further enquiries: info@laboralcentrodearte.org
