Ana Casas Broda on Motherhood, Memory, and Photobooks in Conversation with Anastasia Sierra
In the 'Photographers On Photographers' series by Lenscratch, Boston-based photographer Anastasia Sierra converses with Ana Casas Broda, a photographer originally from Spain now residing in Mexico. Casas Broda's artistic focus encompasses themes of identity, memory, family, and motherhood, as seen in her photobooks Álbum (Mestizo, 2000) and Kinderwunsch (La Fábrica, 2014). The latter received the Best Edited Art Book Award from Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports in 2014 and was a nominee for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. She shares insights about her formative years, her collaboration with Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and her book development. Additionally, Casas Broda co-directs HYDRA, established the Photobook Incubator, and introduced Fotolibros.lat, while discussing her ongoing project related to her children’s adolescence and her mother's aging, alongside recent HYDRA publications.
Key facts
- Ana Casas Broda was born in Granada, Spain, in 1965 and is based in Mexico.
- She authored Álbum (Mestizo, 2000) and Kinderwunsch (La Fábrica, 2014).
- Kinderwunsch received the 2014 Award for Best Edited Art Book from Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.
- Kinderwunsch was nominated for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
- Casas Broda co-directs HYDRA, a photography platform in Mexico City, since 2012.
- In 2016 she created the Photobook Incubator program at HYDRA.
- HYDRA Publishing has produced more than forty photobooks by Latin American photographers.
- Casas Broda launched Fotolibros.lat, a Latin American publishers' collective, which gained seventy members within a month.
- The interview is part of Lenscratch's Photographers On Photographers series, where previous Top 25 Student Prize winners interview mentors.
- Anastasia Sierra is a winner of a 2026 LensCulture Art Photography Award and a 2025 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 finalist.
Entities
Artists
- Ana Casas Broda
- Anastasia Sierra
- Manuel Álvarez Bravo
- Josef Koudelka
- Jill Hartley
- Cartier-Bresson
- André Kertész
- Regner Patsch
- Heinz Cibulka
- Joseph Weiss
- Michaela Moscouw
- Peter Dressler
- Oskar Kokoschka
- Arnold Schönberg
- Egon Schiele
- Gustav Klimt
- Francis Bacon
- Mark Rothko
- Soutine
- Picasso
- Christian Boltanski
- Annette Messager
- Louise Bourgeois
- Dieter Appelt
- Joseph Beuys
- Paul Auster
- Milan Kundera
- Albert Camus
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Raymond Carver
- Allen Ginsberg
- William Burroughs
- Jack Kerouac
- Henry Miller
- Robert Mapplethorpe
- Duane Michals
- Nan Goldin
- Sally Mann
- Jo Spence
- Hanna Wilke
- Kurt Bettelheim
- Richard Billingham
- Larry Clark
- Jim Goldberg
- Philip Brookman
- Demi Moore
- Susan Bright
- Mary Kelly
- Adrienne Rich
- Andrea Liss
- Mierle Laderman Ukeles
- Renée Cox
- Moira Roth
- Lydia Davis
- Annie Ernaux
- Mary Gaitskill
- Jane Lazarre
- Margaret Mead
- Toni Morrison
- Tillie Olsen
- Sylvia Plath
- Sara Ruddick
- Mona Simpson
- Alice Walker
- Joy Williams
- Leigh Ledare
- Elina Brotherus
- Janine Antoni
- Elinor Carucci
- Tierney Gearon
- Fred Hüning
- Miyako Ishiuchi
- Ann Fessler
- Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
- Katie Murray
- Gabriela González Reyes
- Gerardo Montiel Klint
- Ramon Pez
- Yumi Goto
- Beatriz Novaro
- Gabriela García Rivas
- Anaí Tirado
- Mariana Gruener
- Raúl Jiménez Jiménez
Institutions
- Lenscratch
- Top 25 Lenscratch Student Prize
- HYDRA
- La Fábrica
- Mestizo
- PhotoEspaña
- Fotohof Austria
- Bozar Brussels
- Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports
- Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation
- HYDRA Publishing
- Photobook Incubator
- Círculo de Bellas Artes
- Televisa Foundation
- Centro de la Imagen
- CaSa
- Les Rencontres d'Arles
- Hydra gallery
- Photo London
- Fiebre
- Polycopies
- Tokyo Book Art Fair
- Fotolibros.lat
- Griffin Museum of Photography
- Danforth Art Museum
- Emerson Contemporary Gallery
- Panopticon Gallery
- Duncan Miller Gallery
- Blue Sky Gallery
- LensCulture
- Photolucida
- Massachusetts College of Art and Design
- Eye Mama
- teNeues Verlag
- DEAR DAVE
- Musée Magazine
- Vanity Fair
- Discovery Health
Locations
- Spain
- Mexico
- Vienna
- Austria
- Granada
- Valencia
- Madrid
- New York
- United States
- Mexico City
- Oaxaca
- Brussels
- Belgium
- Arles
- France
- London
- United Kingdom
- Tokyo
- Japan
- Boston
- Latin America
- Europe
- Ecuador
- Colombia
- Peru
- Italy
- Argentina