Constanza Portnoy

Country: Argentina 🇦🇷

My name is Constanza Portnoy, I was born in the 80’s in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During those years, my country went through a horrible military dictatorship. For that reason, I feel that I am part of a generation marked by the permanent search for identity and struggle for human rights.\r\nAt age 23, I graduated with honors in Psychology from the University of Buenos Aires.\r\nA little bit by chance, and a little from personal interest, I started working as a Psychologist in the area of disabilities. I specialized in this field with my postgraduate studies and worked in ambulatory care centers, both private and public.\r\nI worked in neuropsychiatric rehabilitation hospitals, assisting young children with disabilities and elderly people in nursing homes. I soon discovered the shortfalls in the lives of these people and that the daily violation of their rights had become something accepted. \r\nAt the same time, I started researching art therapy resources to promote a better quality of life and that’s when Photography crossed my path.\r\nI felt a deep love for that world that led me to discover a very powerful tool to communicate, fight, and urge social resistance.\r\nI started independently and was self-taught, taking pictures of my family and my daily life. Then my ideology and my identity led me to use Photography as a powerful tool for communicating to the public about the social injustices that my country was going through. I went out to the streets and covered the different claims and popular voices. I traveled through some other Latin American countries to get closer to social problems.\r\nThen I immersed myself in research. I took several workshops, always choosing my teachers carefully, and since 2014 I have perfected and specialized myself in Photojournalism and Documentary Research Photography.\r\nI am currently working on my Thesis of research, where I articulate Psychology and Photography, addressing the psycho-social impact and the recovery capacity of human beings in front of certain events with traumatic potential.\r\nI have published my work as a Photographer in various Argentine media outlets mainstream and independent. I have also published for International platforms works as a correspondent on the struggles for the rights of women and social resistances. From the recent movement for the struggle for women\'s rights "Ni una menos" to the struggle movements and salaried workers.\r\nI participated in individual exhibitions and collective exhibitions Internationally and Nationally.\r\nMy photographs have been exhibited in Buenos Aires, Colombia, Mexico, Madrid, Italy, Dubai, Beirut, Chittagong, Paris, New Delhi, Tokyo, Hyderabad, Casablanca, Bangalore, Toulouse, Riyadh and Marseille.\r\nAwards:\r\n-1st Place in the Documentary Family award. Category Photo Series, 2019.\r\n-Honorable Mention at the 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award, 2019.\r\n-I won at the TIFA awards and I obtained the title of Photographer of the year 2018 (Tokyo Photo Awards).\r\n-First place in the IWPA (International Women Photographers Award) 2018 from France.\\r\\n-First place in the Photography Festival Perugia Social Photofest 2018 from Italy.\r\n-Finalist in the category of Professional Photographers in the FINI 2018 (International Festival of the Image of Mexico).\r\n-Finalist in the Single Shot Award category. Festival de la Fotografía Ética 2018, Italy.\r\n-Selected to participate in the Chaina International photo Festival 2018.\r\n-Winner of the Enrique Algarra Grant at the Photon Festival 2018, Spain.\r\n-I obtained the Photojournalism Award "Manos Unidas" 2018, Spain.\r\n-Finalist at the International Photography Award Alfred Fried 2018. Vienna, Austria.\r\n-2nd place at the International Festival "Paraty em foco" 2018. Brazil.\r\n-2nd Place. Deeper Perspective. IPA, 2018\r\n-Winner 2018 of the Oxfam FNPI Scholarship (Gabriel García Márquez Foundation and Oxfam Intermón)\r\n-First finalist 2017 in the Luis Valtueña International Contest of Humanitarian Photography, Spain.\r\n-“I see myself as a story tellers through the images. I\'m not interested in speculating with the images, but interpelate and interrogate continuously through them. The most significant stories for me, are those ones that speaking of human relationships overcoming adverse contexts”