Laia Abril Spain, b. 1986

Addressing intimate and complex subjects, the Spanish artist Laia Abril structures her long-term projects into chapters, using photography, text, archives, video, and sound as means of expression.

After completing her five-year project On Eating Disorders, focused on eating disorders, Laia Abril embarked on a trilogy, A History of Misogyny, which investigates the historical and contemporary mechanisms of women’s oppression.

The preliminary chapter of A History of Misogyny, On Mass Hysteria, examines the social and medical construction of “hysteria” as a tool to control women’s bodies. This project was presented at Photo Elysée in Lausanne in 2023, and at Le BAL in Paris in 2025.

The first chapter, On Abortion, documents the consequences of restrictive legislation on women through archives, testimonies, and legal documents. Presented at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2016 and awarded the Prix de la Photo Madame Figaro, it was later exhibited, among other venues, at Foto Colectania in Barcelona in 2019 and at the Museum of Sex in New York in 2020. In 2024, it was included in the group exhibition Corps à corps at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The second chapter, On Rape, continues this investigation by exploring the cultural and judicial structures that shape narratives around sexual violence. It was presented in 2021 at FOAM in Amsterdam, in 2022 at the V&A and Photoworks in London, and in the group exhibition What Remains at Moderna Museet in 2025. This project was awarded the Foam Paul Huf Award in 2020.

Laia Abril, born in 1986 in Spain, is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, text, video, and sound. After earning a degree in journalism, she moved to New York to focus on photography and develop narratives around sexuality, eating disorders, and gender inequality. In 2009, she joined a five-year residency offered by La Fábrica (Madrid) and the Benetton Research Center in Treviso, where she worked as a researcher, editor, and photographer for Colors magazine.