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The 14th Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial showcases documentary photography from the Banco Sabadell Art Collection

“Local is Global. Banco Sabadell Art Collection. Documentary Photography” will be on display at La Bòbila in Palafrugell from 1 August to 18 October 2026, as part of the 14th Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial.

Curated by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation, the exhibition brings together a selection of more than 50 photographs from the Documentary Photography section of the Banco Sabadell Art Collection. Featuring works by leading national and international photographers, the exhibition offers new audiences the opportunity to engage with the Collection while highlighting visual testimonies of recent history, distinguished by their sensitivity, outstanding quality and social commitment.

The exhibition explores some of the major challenges facing contemporary society, including migration, climate change, economic, political and public health crises, and armed conflicts. It reaffirms the role of documentary photography as an essential tool for understanding the world around us and encouraging critical reflection, while underscoring the constant interconnection between the local and the global.

  • Laia Abril
    Untitled
    Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States, 2013

    From the project On Eating Disorders, specifically The Epilogue, which documents the Robinson family’s grieving process following the death of their 26-year-old daughter from bulimia.

  • Mads Nissen
    Untitled
    Viva Bem Care Home, São Paulo, Brazil, 2020

    Nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza embraces Rosa Luzia Lunardi, aged 85, in the first hug she had received after five months of isolation. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, care homes across the country were closed to visitors.

    This image is part of the project Brazil Ravaged by ‘the Small Flu’, which documents the impact of the pandemic in Brazil, one of the countries with the highest infection rates in the world at the time, while President Jair Bolsonaro downplayed its severity by referring to Covid-19 as a “small flu”.

     

  • Josep Maria de Llobet
    Blank #1
    Banesto, Plaça de Catalunya, 10 Barcelona

    From the project Blank (2013–2014), which the photographer described as follows: “In the context of a global economic crisis largely caused by the banking sector, banks began a process of mass branch closures, characterised by painting the windows white before vacating the premises”.

  • Sebastián Liste
    A child jumps into the water at an abandoned industrial complex
    Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 2011

    From the project Urban Quilombo, which documents the bonds forged among dozens of families who occupied Galpão da Araujo Barreto, an abandoned chocolate factory, in 2003. Before settling there, many of them lived in neighbourhoods marked by violence on the streets of Salvador, Bahia. United by the need for decent housing, they transformed the site into their home.

    In 2011, the factory was demolished by government order. The 130 families that then made up the Barreto community were evicted and rehoused in Jardim das Margaridas, a suburb on the outskirts of the city.

  • Amanda M. Perobelli
    Flooded street corner
    Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2024

    This image forms part of a report on the most severe flooding in Brazil’s history up to 2024. The disaster caused widespread environmental devastation, displaced more than 600,000 people, claimed 183 lives, and affected 2.39 million individuals.