GUIDED BY A WHISPER
Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking.
March 15, 2026
INTERVIEW
PHOTOGRAPHY Isolda Fabregat Sanz
INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs
Isolda Fabregat Sanz works in quiet opposition to the speed of contemporary image culture. At a time when photographs are expected to perform instantly, her work insists on patience. Her images do not present conclusions. They remain open, attentive to the conditions of their making and their encounter.
Her grounding in art history informs both how images are created and how they are understood. Isolda has described this knowledge as something ever present, “the history of art that Jiminy Cricket whispers in my ear.” It is not a voice that instructs through quotation or homage, but one that operates quietly, shaping decisions through tone and restraint. This awareness is reinforced by professional experience within institutions such as the British Museum and the Peggy Guggenheim, where images are not only encountered but mediated, preserved, and assigned value.
Isolda approaches photography knowing that images can shape how people think and feel long after the camera is put away. Each frame carries a history of looking and of institutional framing. Rather than foregrounding this awareness through overt reference, she embeds it into the structure of the photograph itself. Light disciplines the scene. Composition establishes distance. What is visible is shaped as much by restraint as by revelation.
Working across portraiture, fashion, and documentary practice, Isolda refuses the hierarchies that separate these forms. Instead, she treats them as shared territories in which questions of authorship and representation remain unresolved. Her subjects are not exaggerated or simplified. They are allowed to exist naturally within the frame, leaving the viewer free to interpret what they see.
There is a quiet ethical dimension to this approach. Isolda does not ask the viewer to identify, consume, or judge. She asks for attention. The work holds space for ambiguity at a time when ambiguity is often flattened by certainty. In doing so, her photographs argue for a slower relationship to images, one in which looking becomes an active, reflective act rather than a passive habit.
This interview considers how such a practice takes shape. It follows Isolda Fabregat Sanz’s thinking around choice, responsibility, and visual authority, and asks what it means to make photographs that resist resolution while remaining fully present in the world.
“I resist immediacy, I feel like the world is spinning, technology has developed fast, transport (planes) allow us to travel fast from one location to another, we eat fast food, or drink take away coffee. While living in London I felt that I had no time to digest what was going on. So, I rebel, I want to move slow.
I believe I have two different approaches in photography: on the one hand I sometimes spend hours looking at details on the mundane of the city landscape such as an aesthetic crack on a wall, or shadow of a tree on a bench or the reflection of a building in a puddle. On the other hand, I love capturing movement. For instance, I have a series of flamenco dancers, I like incorporating movement in my fashion and I also do candid pictures in events. Furthermore, on a frenzy night I took a picture on a rainy day in Milan of a tram moving from a lower point of view. The city is in a rush, no one is there, it is late at night. I capture this spinning, because that is what I feel this is. I want to stop the tram.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH ISOLDA FABREGAT SANZ
TPL: What is the very first photograph you remember caring about, whether you made it or simply encountered it? How has it shaped the way you see now?
ISOLDA: One of the first photographs that I vividly remember is the portrait of Gabriel García Márquez by Spanish photographer Colita at the exhibition COLITA, ¡PORQUE SÍ! At Pedrera (Barcelona, Spain). It is a fun and playful portrait of one of the most well-known and prestigious writers in Latinoamerica. When I do a portrait of someone, the shutter speed moves at 1/100th per second. The act of taking a photo is rapid, what matters is the time before you take to create the right lighting, choosing the place where you are photographing the subject and the most important. Creating a comfortable and playful environment for your model, read his body language and try to capture its true nature. That is what that portrait of Colita means to me since I saw it.
TPL: You photograph across portraiture, fashion, and documentary practice. How do you understand the relationship between these modes within your work? What do they allow you to ask differently?
ISOLDA: Once a professor in Milan told me that real fashion is done in studios. In my head he couldn’t possibly be more wrong. People wear clothes in the street; people style their clothes. I like to incorporate movement and realism in my fashion because I want it to be relatable, almost like a documentary and sometimes I feel like I am doing portraits in fashion when the model becomes an important subject, the center of a relatable story. Nevertheless, by working for Tiké (an artisan of ceramic Italian jewelry) I have treated my models almost like beautiful sculptures or even mannequins with the only intention of creating beauty. The subject (the model) becomes just another element in my picture sometimes in fashion, specially when I have done close ups for jewelry.
On the other hand, sometimes while doing portraits I feel like fashion is in my head because I approach people when I see someone with interesting attire. And I want the clothes of my subject to look immaculate.
I cannot separate fashion from urban photography unless there are no subjects in my picture. Because clothes are related to a time and a place and can locate us. As an art historian I consider fashion as another tip to understand what period this painting was made.
TPL: You have worked within major art institutions. How has that proximity shaped your understanding of photographic authority? Did it change how you think about validation or visibility?
ISOLDA: Photography was not considered in my university while doing Art history in Barcelona. I don’t recall any important photography shows at the Peggy Guggenheim, or the British Museum while I was working there. In both museums photography is important for the documentary presence. But rarely as an art form itself. There are some photography artworks in their exhibitions, but still photography is not as considered in the art world yet.
TPL: You’ve described art history as Jiminy Cricket whispering in your ear. Is that voice more of a gentle guide, a moral compass, or a constant question mark? Do you ever ignore that voice?
ISOLDA: I believe it is a question mark before I publish the picture. I have years of visual media in my head that make me think twice. I have this constant thought “I have seen that before” so I sometimes consider taking pictures as practice because I know that I might be doing something that has been done before and is not unique. Having said that, when I do personal projects, I take influence from, painting architecture, sculpture, it is like a melting pot in my head. But I try not to copy, I give a new meaning, the technique has to serve a purpose, bring a message.
An example of the influence of art in my picture as constant is the recent series of portraits done to the Australian singer Billy Otto. While asking him to pose for me shirtless I ask him to imitate the Slave of Michelangelo. A sculpture that I saw at the Louvre (museum in Paris) years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
TPL: You approach photography with an awareness that images carry authority long after they leave the camera. How does that shape your sense of responsibility? Does it influence what you choose not to photograph?
ISOLDA: While doing street photography I know that I can’t be too selfish. While wandering in the city you come across very interesting characters with a great camera appeal that might make a masterpiece portrait. However, I would never want to recreate the pain or struggle of other people. I tend to have a chat with the subjects I photograph, I create a bond, a friendly interaction, I do not steal. While I was in Jordan a cotton seller approached me and my friend. He was a character, the way he smiled was fascinating for me, so I had to do a portrait of him. On the other hand, I met this very sweet gentleman in a bar. When I asked him to do a portrait of him, he immediately faltered, he had a gentle smile and was wearing a very colorful jersey that his wife made. I kindly ask him to take a portrait of him because I found him interesting and he was touched by the fact that I considered him, we are still in contact.
TPL: If you could spend a day in the studio of any artist, living or dead, who would it be and why? Would you want to watch, help, or just quietly exist there?
ISOLDA: I would love to spend one day with Helmut Newton. I want to learn all about his lighting, I like to ask him a million questions about how to treat their models. I love his irony and his respect for their subjects. I also dream of meeting the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, I actually did my BA thesis about his work in comparison to painting. I love the use of the light and color in his movies and the fact that he takes great inspiration from known and not known artists.
Photography is a perfect ice breaker to approach people. I have created great relationships while doing portraits or fashion.
TPL: What is something people often misunderstand about photography that quietly drives you mad?
ISOLDA: History of photography was not even considered in art history at the University of Barcelona while I was studying (2013-2018). It is considered a medium to do art, while painting is immediately artistic. Also, because of the nature of photography it is considered a medium to document, so it is immediately believed to show the truth. But the photographer can manipulate, and images are subjective, because the photographer has framed a reality. Their reality to you.
TPL: What is the most unexpected place photography has taken you? Was it somewhere physical, emotional, or both?
ISOLDA: Photography is a perfect ice breaker to approach people. I have created great relationships while doing portraits or fashion. Photography allowed me to stop at 5 in the morning in Russia to photograph the reflection of a channel with a golden light in the very ugly neighborhood I was living in Kapitanskaya Street, in Saint Petersburg. I was coming back from a night out and I realized I have to stop and contemplate. Photography has this power, when I see beauty in the mundane, I stop and look.
TPL: Are you the kind of photographer who travels light, or does your bag resemble a small survival kit? What is the one thing you never travel without, outside of your camera? What is the one thing you always carry that has nothing to do with photography?
ISOLDA: I am missing my Fuji X100F right now. A small digital (not heavy) camera that allows me to take candid pictures. For many years I used a Pentax that I inherited from my dad and that I used for more than 10 years. I did two interrails with the camera and captured great moments of the Black Lives Matter in London with it. Then I bought myself a Sony Alpha III, that I now use for work. People remember me always having a camera around my neck. Nowadays I am using the Sony and an analogue camera for my adventures in Australia when I want to travel light.
TPL: What does your photographic process look like once you are no longer shooting? How important are editing and sequencing to you?
ISOLDA: I enjoy being able to change a color picture into black and white if I feel that works better (never abuse). Or cutting an image and reframing events shots. However, most of the time I enjoy the process of taking the actual picture. I do not really enjoy sitting in front of my computer.
TPL: Looking ahead, what questions are currently driving your work forward? What feels unresolved or newly urgent?
ISOLDA: Nowadays I am mostly working in events and doing less fashion, however, I feel a bit stuck. I live in this beautiful place in Australia, Byron Bay, at the moment where nature is impressive and there’s a lot of good-looking people. I am missing the urban, the odd, the unexpected. A few weeks ago, I went to Lismore, which is a town that has sadly suffered from the floods that had devastated it. I found it inspiring, I love their graffiti, the rusty buildings, the abandoned places. Like in the 18th century painters found inspiration in the ruins and abandoned churches. I am fascinated by this kind of urban landscape.
TPL: On days when you are not photographing, what would we find you doing? Do those moments feed back into your work in quiet ways?
ISOLDA: I used to go to the Opera, Filmoteca (old film library in Barcelona), I visit the museums and galleries all the time in London, Barcelona and Milan. These places are where I normally find my inspiration: in painting, sculpture and cinema and theatre. Nowadays I read, watch movies and try to see art. I also love dancing. I started doing flamenco around a year and a half ago. Of course, I danced flamenco and I photographed it. While living in Venice I saw a photography exhibition of the great dancer Mijaíl Barýshnikov. Moved by his passion for dancing he has photographed in a unique way different dances around the world. That gave me the idea years later, to photograph dance there is nothing like being also a dancer yourself. When I shoot in a "tablao" I understand the rhythm, I feel like I am dancing with them, I catch that decisive moment because I understand it better. Also, by being in shows myself had allowed me to be with my camera and photograph the dancers before the show in a more intimate way. They also have a more genuine answer to my camera because I am their colleague (another dancer).
Listening to Isolda Fabregat Sanz speak about photography, one begins to understand that her work is shaped as much by movement as it is by looking. Her journey has taken her across cities rich with artistic memory. Barcelona, London, Milan, Venice, Saint Petersburg and now Australia each appear not simply as locations but as layers of experience that continue to inform how she approaches the frame. Travel, for Isolda, is not an accessory to photography. It is part of the way she learns to see.
Underlying this movement is a deep and enduring knowledge of art history. The whisper she describes of art history speaking in her ear reflects a practice shaped by reflection and awareness. Each image becomes a point where visual memory and lived experience meet.
Now based in Byron Bay, Australia, Isolda finds herself surrounded by a landscape very different from the dense urban environments that once fueled much of her work. Yet even here the search continues. The pull of unexpected places, rusted structures, shifting light and human presence still draws her attention. As she reflects on the future of her practice, there is a sense that her work remains open, still responding to the places she inhabits and the people she encounters along the way.
What emerges from this conversation is a photographer attentive not only to the image itself but to the conditions that shape it. Isolda’s practice reminds us that photography can still slow the world down, inviting us to pause, observe and consider the quiet details that often pass unnoticed.
