Lideresas by Ana Amado

“Lideresas” is the new work of Spanish artist Ana Amado that recreates historical photographs of male leaders, displayed at the fence of the Embassy of Spain’s Cultural Office.

The inequality between men and women, especially in positions of power, responsibility, and leadership, remains overwhelming. Though much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. This imbalance becomes even more obvious in older women, especially those over 65, with large gaps in command positions; though they still play an essential role as a support for families by taking care of grandchildren, husband and other elderly people, they remain invisible in our society.

This project turns our gaze towards them. To do so, artist and women recreate iconic or well-known photographs where male leaders are shown in any area of society, to generate a healthy debate and change through the power of photography.

With photography as a medium in itself, looking inside its ontology and reverting these well-known images, the new protagonists in the first shooting were Las Lideresas de (The Women Leaders of…), a group of older women from a working-class neighborhood in Madrid, who together developed activities that sought to give voice and light to women. What started with a group of elderly Spanish women has kept growing, showing that powerful females are everywhere.

After these early sessions in Madrid, the series kept growing, adding new experiences and sessions with other groups of older women of any condition and place. In Galicia, in 2020, a group of 20 older women participated in a series of collaborative photographic workshops that involved three educational centers and nearly a hundred young students. In Gambia, in 2021, a session took place with women from Tujereng, another one with a group of students and women from Huesca and Gurrea de Gállego, and in Vegaviana, a colonial village near Portugal.

This is the first time the author, Ana Amado, photographs American women to join the project in Washington, D.C.

View the PDF presentation (10 Mbs)

Women’s History Month 2024

New photographs, like the one below, have been added to our outdoor exhibition to celebrate Women’s History Month 2024.

About the artist

Ana Amado is a photographer, architect, and visual artist. She holds a MA in Photography from Madrid’s Lens School of Visual Arts, a Postgraduate in Creative Illustration by Barcelona’s EINA School of Art, and a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Art, Museology and Criticism from Santiago de Compostela University. She also holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the High School of Architecture at the University of A Coruña.

Her work has been awarded internationally and exhibited at Photo London 2018, the Sony World Photography Awards 2018, PhotoEspaña2017 (Madrid), the Biennale di Venezia (in the Spanish Pavillion, Golden Lion 2016), at the Royal Academy of Arts (London), Tent Gallery (Edinburgh), the International Festival Eme3 and Picasso Museum (Barcelona), the International Arts Prize Obra Abierta 2016 (Plasencia), among others.

She has worked as assistant to the American photographer Mark Steinmetz in the U.S. She lives in Madrid and teaches photography at different Visual Arts schools and Universities such as Hamilton College or Tokai University.

Her work seeks to understand the outside world but also the intimate one through the images. Recently, her photographic projects focus on topics of social content where architecture acts as a scenic background.