Pilar Irala-Hortal
Professor at the University San Jorge, curator, and art critic. PhD in Art History and Musicology (2004) and PhD in Communication (2020). Her main line of research focuses on the relationships between photography, visual rhetoric and narrative; in addition to the historical-photographic heritage. Since 2011 she directs the Jalón Ángel Photographic Archive and researches on the figure of the photographer having curated several exhibitions on his work and figure.
In 2018 she was elected member of the governing board of EUROPEANA and since 2019 she is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Consortium for Photographic Heritage (PHOTOCONSORTIUM). In the 2022 call she was nominated for the National Conservation and Restoration Award (Ministry of Culture and Sports) for her leadership work in the recovery of the Jalón Ángel Archive.
As an expert in documentary photography, rhetoric and visual narrative she has conceptualized the theoretical framework called the Barthes syndrome [El síndrome de Barthes. La construcción retórica de la imagen fotográfica (Fragua, 2019)]. His latest book is Jalón Ángel (1898-1976). Más allá del fotógrafo (Tirant lo Blanch, 2022). She is the author of dozens of publications in indexed journals and specialized monographs, has curated national and international exhibitions of photojournalism and has been a researcher for prestigious foreign academic institutions in the United Kingdom and Italy.