She was educated in France up to adolescence, at which point she returned to Spain and settled in Barcelona. She studied photography at the Institut d’Estudis
Fotogràfics de Catalunya (Catalonian Institute of Photograph Studies) and the career of Art History.
In 1987 she took up photojournalism in the convulsed Central America. Nicaragua will be her first destination. Simultaneously she worked for the newspaper,
Diario de Barcelona, until 1992. Much of her professional activity is principally related to Latin America (Nicaragua, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru,
Mexico...).
In 1989 she was appointed a member of the International Relations section of Associació de Fotògrafs de Premsa i Comunicació de Catalunya, body that
promotes the dissemination of photojournalism and author photography, where she also managed and coordinated cultural programming until 1994. She was a
founding member of Espai de Fotografia Francesc Català-Roca.
From 1994 to 1996 she lived in the Andean city of La Paz. The Fundación Cultural Quipus, a prestigious body committed to the promotion and preservation of
artistic expressions of Bolivian culture, commissioned her to design a plan to create the Archivo Nacional Histórico Fotográfico de Bolivia (Bolivia Photo Library).
Eminent photographers: Julio Cordero and Freddy Alborta; and distinguished experts: Javier Nuñez de Arco, Antonio Eguino, Peter McFarren, Daniel Bucki…,
introduced her to the fascinating world of the photographic heritage of Bolivia during the course of her research and photo sourcing work. She co-devised the
project guidelines and conceived the technical protocol of the archive. At the same time, she became a member of a working group promoted by the Republic of
Bolivia Chancellery to boost relations with UNESCO and to stimulate the joint coordination of cultural projects.
She is involved, intermittently, as curator, photographic editor and general coordinator in cultural projects related to the visual arts linked to different social
themes: immigration (integration, social exclusion), gender equality (women, education), human rights (recovery of historical memory) and the environment
(conservation, sustainability), for several national and foreign entities.
Since 1987, she has worked alongside the photojournalist Tomàs Abella coordinating support to the scientific/artistic curator and the photographic process for all
his projects. She also supervises copyright for him and acts as his business and financial manager.
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Daniel Buck thanked her collaboration on the book Pioneer Photography in Bolivia: Directory of Daguerreotypists & Photographers, 1840s-1930s.
©Maria Borrajo/Tomàs Abella | http:www.tomasabella.com