Exhibition
A permanent exhibition project consisting of mainly unknown photographs.
From mobile phone to the internet and thence to the walls of Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Madrid. This was the route of the images that make up the first ‘Instagrammers Gallery’ in Europe. The exhibition comprises photos taken by smartphones and selected by a team of experts. All the images have one thing in common, their source: the social network Instagram.
“We wanted to showcase social art but without losing sight of our technological identity,” explains Almudena Bermejo, the director of Espacio Fundación Telefónica. “This is an exhibition that reflects the opportunities that technology brings to the world of photography and its dissemination on the social networks. We’re opening up the Telefónica Foundation – which has featured artists such as Chema Madoz, Joan Fontcuberta and Vik Muniz – to these new artists,” she concludes.
The project is coordinated by Philippe González, the founder of the worldwide network of Instagram fans known as Instagrammers, and the Instagrammers Gallery, which first opened at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in 2014.
Instagrammers and the Telefónica Foundation were the first to transfer the potential of the Instagram to a physical space, and Almudena Bermejo believes they are “the best partners for this project. We don’t just want to reflect what is on the social networks; our gallery is a selection of the best there is on Instagram. Not everything comes up to scratch.”
Phil González, the founder of the Instagrammers Gallery, explains that his project “originated with the goal of becoming the world’s biggest virtual gallery of mobile photography and a potential benchmark exhibition space for thousands of talented mobile phone photographers. The Telefónica Foundation has enabled us to go one step further by opening the first gallery in Madrid. It’s a great honour for us to be able to count on their support for the global Instagrammers Gallery project,” he adds.
Would you like to exhibit your photos?
The exhibition comprises a permanent section of around twenty artists and another temporary section which is themed in relation to other exhibitions taking place in the Espacio and Telefónica Foundation projects. Keep an eye on our social networks, website and exhibitions for information on the competitions you can take part in. Every few months we will propose a theme and a hashtag to give you the chance to form part of our gallery. A team of professionals will evaluate the quality and originality of the images that will eventually make up the physical exhibition in Espacio Fundación Telefónica.
Photos printed by Picglaze