Strokes of a Heartbreaking Event at Fotocanímar 2026

Spanish photographer Beatriz Polo Iañez was one of the most awaited artists of Fotocanímar 2026, an edition in which colloquiums on national conflicts constituted the most appreciated topic.

The author, a native of Palma de Mallorca, took advantage of this invitation to the Matanzas contest to uncover, through her project «Cuando se acabe el día» (When the Day Ends), one of the most shocking events in her country.

La Desbandá or Desbandada, a massacre that occurred on the Málaga-Almería highway, is part of the indelible episodes of the Spanish Civil War, where Franco’s troops devastated a large part of the population of the area.

The tragic event inspired the lens specialist to address the history of this event through interviews with its survivors and relatives, and with the aid of recorded documentation that evidences each account.

Her interest regarding this chapter appeared when she learned of her grandmother’s experience during this barbarity, and it increased with the reading of the book The Spanish Civil War by British historian Paul Preston.

Likewise, in her photo carousel she alludes to the Monument to the Victims of the Baleares Cruiser, one of those that struck from the sea, which is located near a park in her current residence.

Although there are books and films inspired by this event, this work in particular wishes to disseminate the most human and unequivocal version of it, based on the need to reconstruct historical memory.

All figures indicate that Francisco Franco’s dictatorship left unimaginable ravages that still endure in many structures of society as well as in the vivid memories of the refugees.

«We cannot forget when we know that the government of that time was aware that the majority of those bombed were civilian population.»

Then there is the La Desbandá Sociocultural Association and Hiking Club, a memorialist and vindicative movement created with the purpose of remembering the event through a frequent walk along that route.

For the 2025 Mallorca Photography Talent Illenc Prize winner, it was a wise decision to photograph the streets that witnessed these actions and interact with those buildings, even before discovering everything that happened.

The multidisciplinary artist chose the images that most embodied this slaughter to illustrate, more crudely and vividly, how her people lived the darkness and panic that all war perpetrates.

«I was recreating the testimonies of broken families whose only request is truth, justice, and inner liberation.»

The Fotocanímar event, one of the most relevant in the photographic sphere with national and international scope, returned to Matanzas, its city of origin, to make visible the work of the greatest contemporary exponents of Latin America and Europe.