Aperture Conversations: Laia Abril

FREE

Aperture Foundation is pleased to present an artist talk with Laia Abril, who will discuss her most recent book, On Abortion, which recently won the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year Award. This project presents Abril’s research on an often-dismissed history of women’s reproductive choices. Portraits are woven together with images of relevant political events and archival photographs to both document and conceptualize the dangers that women face all over the world when it comes to the inherent lack of access to safe methods of abortion. Abril uses visual and textual cues to encourage her audience to materialize what has remained unseen for so long.

Laia Abril (b. 1986, Barcelona) is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, text, video, and sound. After graduating with a degree in Journalism in 2009, she enrolled in the artist residency at FABRICA in Italy, where she worked for 5 years as a creative editor and staff photographer for COLORS Magazine. Abril’s work has been exhibited internationally and is part of private and public collections such as Musée de l’Elysée, Fotomuseum Winterthur, FRAC Centre, and Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. In 2018 her book, On Abortion (Dewi Lewis), won the Paris Photo – Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year Award and became a current nominee of the Deutsche Börse Award. Currently, she is developing the following episodes: Chapter Two: On Rape —recipient of the Visionary Award from Tim Hetherington Trust, and the Genesis Chapter: On Mass Hysteria —current nominee of the Prix Elysée.

Image: Laia Abril, Portrait of Magdalena, 32, Poland, from the book On Abortion (Dewi Lewis Publishing), 2018

Aperture Foundation’s public programs are supported, in part, by generous donations from our Board of Trustees; our Members and other individuals; corporate and private foundations, including the Grace Jones Richardson Trust and the Jane Smith Turner Foundation; and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.