The Andalusian Center of Photography (CAF) and the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH), both dependent on the Ministry of Culture and Sports, have launched ‘Mission Andalusia’, a project to map the Andalusian rural landscape from the perspective of contemporary eight renowned Andalusian photographers.
Curated by Juan María Rodríguez, director of CAF, and under the scientific direction of Silvia Fernández Cacho, responsible for the Cultural Landscape Laboratory of IAPH, this project «represents the first comprehensive view of the variety of the Andalusian landscape led by Andalusian photographers,» highlighted the Minister of Culture and Sports, Patricia del Pozo, during the presentation of this program, held at the CAF headquarters in Almería. «One of the fundamental values of the Andalusian Center of Photography is to reflect on the visual identity of the reality that surrounds it, with a prominent role played by the landscape,» emphasized the Minister.
Laura León (Seville, 1976), Manuel Espaliú (Seville, 1970), Santi Donaire (Jaén, 1988), María Clauss (Huelva, 1969), Pablo López (Granada, 1984), Julián Ochoa (San Fernando, 1961), David Jiménez (Alcalá de Guadaira, 1970) and Susana Girón (Huéscar, 1975), all closely connected to landscape photography, born and mostly based in Andalusia, are the selected photographers by the curator of this proposal, the director of CAF, Juan María Rodríguez, to provide an author’s record of about forty Andalusian rural landscapes. The project will culminate in February 2026, with the opening of an exhibition that will occupy the two large rooms of the Andalusian Center of Photography in Almería.
All Andalusian locations – valleys, plains, plateaus, sub-desert steppes, mountain ranges, countryside, coast, or marshes – have been selected in conjunction with Silvia Fernández Cacho, a European doctor in History and responsible for the Cultural Landscape Laboratory of IAPH, to ensure that «no natural landscape is excluded.» «‘Mission Andalusia will contribute to a modernization of the public gaze on the Andalusian landscape, avoiding the clichés and the picturesque treatment with which the territory has traditionally been represented. In this way, the heritage value of the landscape will be emphasized, as well as its cultural, ethnographic, and geographical traces,» highlighted del Pozo.
Del Pozo emphasized the «absolute creative freedom» with which these photographers are working, only subject to the obligatory use of color and the 3:2 and 3:4 format, the most adaptable for landscape recording. «We seek an author’s perspective, a personal view, documenting a space and a place, at a specific moment and under a prism of creativity,» added the Minister.
The total of the images created by the eight photographers, around 350, will be deposited in the CAF, thus becoming part of the cultural center’s collection. They will also be made available to the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage for use as a dissemination tool and for technical and scientific purposes. Additionally, around 120 will be exhibited in the planned show next year, accompanied by the publication of an extensive catalog.
Photographic missions
The cataloging of landscape and heritage through photography was undertaken shortly after the introduction of the new photographic technique in 1839, through missions that began in France with the use of the daguerreotype itself, where a group of photographers documented various types of heritage.
Since then, different missions, such as the Heliographic mission of 1851 in France, that of the ‘Farm Security Administration’ in the rural areas of the United States in 1937, or those decreed from 1984 by the DATAR, a French organization dedicated to territorial organization, among the most famous, have recorded the memory and changes in the landscape and heritage, constituting today a substantial source of knowledge and historical archive.
The mission that the project ‘Mission Andalusia’ is now carrying out in Andalusia proposes an authorial perspective, at the boundaries of recording and new photographic documentary. In this way, it aims to provide a current view of the community and show how the daily life of the towns of Andalusia coexists and is imbued with the natural landscape of Andalusia, an interaction that, through literature or painting, has enriched the history of Spanish culture.
Thus, ‘Mission Andalusia’ aims to contribute to the dissemination and consideration of the landscape, a value already recognized by the first Autonomy Statute of 1981 and further reinforced by the current Autonomy Statute of Andalusia of 2007, both in terms of the need to protect its environmental richness and variety, its enjoyment, and its legacy to future generations, as well as its contribution as a shaping element of Andalusian identity.