About

Susana I. Espana is a Spanish-born visual artist, photographer, and collector based in Bremen, Germany, whose work has been exhibited across Europe, England, Turkey, and the USA.

Espana's photography is characterized by an intimate search for the "little things" of everyday life, imbuing them with emotion through masterful use of color and light. Themes of belonging, home, and feeling at home are consistently explored in her work, which has included over 20 years of photographing her immediate family, friends, and domestic spaces. As Charlotte Cotton notes in The Photograph as Contemporary Art, "Intimate photography is an exercise in pathology, an editing and sequencing of moments...that reveal the origin and manifestation of the emotional lives of the subjects."

In recent years, Espana has expanded her focus from photography to collage, mixed media, and embroidery. She finds the medium of collage particularly therapeutic, allowing her to express herself by coupling seemingly disparate realities on a single plane. She is drawn to the layering and texture of collage, believing that we can use the "scraps of our experiences, our memories, to later create, through this technique, a narrative that helps us understand our biographies."

For a decade, Espana has also compiled and collected anonymous, yet emotionally resonant photographs found in markets and private archives. She is inspired by these "memories frozen in time" that share a universal language, echoing Susan Sontag's idea that "collecting photographs...is collecting the world."

Education

1993-1999 BSc (Hons) Dentistry, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

2001-2002 Studies in Restoration of Art, (CEROA), Madrid, Spain.

2003-2004 Studies in Photography (EFTI), Madrid, Spain.

2006-2008 Master of Arts in Photography, London College of Communication, UK.

Solo Exhibitions

2024 “Poetics of Dwelling”, Atelier Laforest, Robert Munford Archive, Dennysville, Maine (USA)

Group Exhibitions and Festivals

2025 Cluster Photography & Print Fair “Metamorphosis”, Unlocked Shoreditch, London (U.K)

2025 The 22nd Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for women photographers, Honorable Mention, Fotonostrum Gallery, Barcelona ,Spain.

2018 Group Exhibition "Travelers", Blank Wall Gallery, Athens, Greece.

2018 International Festival of Photography, Chania, Greece.

2007 MA Final Show, The Galleries, London College of Communication, London (UK).

2007 ENTREFOTOS, Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid, Spain.

2007 SANDBLAST Festival, Richmix Gallery Space, Photomonth, London(UK).

2007 Festival of Photography 4 UFAT (Uludağ Üniversitesi Fotoğraf Amatörleri Topluluğu), Bursa, Turkey.

2007 Amnesty International, International Women's Day, London, UK.

2004 Festival 'OFF' PHOTOESPAÑA 04, Galería EFTI, Madrid, Spain.

2004 'De tal Palo tal astilla', Tarazona, Spain.

Various

2007-2009 Portraits for the Architecture Magazin Xcepto, Madrid, Spain.

2006-2007 Workshop "On The Road" by Nikos Ekonomopoulos (Magnum Photographer).

2007 Acquisition "More than Thirty Years" for the University of the Arts, Permanent Collection, London, UK.

2004 Acquisition "Con mi presencia" (With my own presence) for the Arts Council Permanent Collection, Tarazona, Spain.

All images on this site are protected by the international copyright laws and are exclusive property of Susana Espana. Images may not be copied, published, reproduced, projected, manipulated, used or altered in any way without written permission from Susana Espana. The use of any photography as the basis of another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.