Essential Images | Maria Contreras Coll

July 24, 2020

Posted In: Exhibitions, Gallery Exhibitions

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Maria Contreras Coll is a documentary photographer based in Barcelona, Spain.

Maria has the need to tell people’s stories from an intimate perspective. She is especially interested in gender issues and how women are re-defining social structures in different countries and religions. She is a National Geographic Explorer 2020-2021 and a member of Women Photograph, and she is currently participating in a three-year program as a mentee to James Estrin, senior staff photographer at The New York Times and co-creator of Lens Blog, and Ed Kashi, member of VII Photo Agency.

After finishing her degree in Fine Arts in Barcelona, she studied a postgraduate degree in Photojournalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona as a valedictorian. She spent the next year working on the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, traveling and living in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, Greece, France, Germany, and Morocco. She lived in Nepal during 2017 and 2018 to document how women are fighting against menstrual restrictions in the country. She is currently working on a long term project about sexual violence in her country, Spain, with  Joana Biarne’s Grant support, and exploring the concepts of women and religion in different parts of the world thanks to the support of National Geographic.

Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire among others, and shown in cities such as Dubai, London, or Barcelona. She is a guest lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has recently been awarded a POYLatam for her work in Nepal.

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