Cristina de Middel's Creative Process
- emmikukkula
- Nov 4, 2020
- 2 min read
Cristina de Middel (b.1975) is a Spanish photojournalist turned artist known for her work combining real and fictional elements. This is what she calls “expanded documentary”.
“I mix straight documentary work with more directed scenes that complete the understanding, and that allow me to add layers that I would never otherwise be able to include”, she describes [1].
De Middel started off as a photojournalist, but after a 10 year career found herself disappointed in the industry. She had lost her faith in the media but not in photography. Wanting to share stories using photography but not through newspapers or magazines, she started to research stories that are real but unbelievable as well as stories that aren’t real but people still believe. What inspires her is the grey zone between fact and fiction [2].
Born out of that desire to question photography and the way photographers represent the world, Afronauts (2012) was her first project after leaving the newspaper. It explores the history of a failed space program in Zambia in the 1960s. Most of the photographs are re-enactments taken in her hometown in Spain, wearing costumes, including a spacesuit made by her grandmother [3].
“Before I could change the world with photography, I had to change the photography first” [3]
De Middel is inspired by not only questioning photography and media, but also by her love for science fiction, absurdity and irony. She loves playing with clichés and stereotypes. For example in Afronauts, instead of pretending to understand Africa, she pointed out the clichés by maximizing them to a ridiculous level. This was done in order to make people question them, whereas photography typically feeds to the reductive stereotypes about Africa[4]. I think De Middel has succeeded in portraying the continent from a different perspective and reminding us that there are dreamers, not only soldiers.
1. Cristina de Middel – Journey to the Center. [online]. Available at:
(Accessed 2/11/2020)
2. Vogue Italia. (2013). Focus on: Cristina de Middel. [online]. Available at:
(Accessed 2/11/2020)
3. Martin Parr Foundation. (2020). Sofa Sessions: Conversations with Martin Parr – Cristina de Middel. [online]. Available at:
(Accessed 2/11/2020)
4. King, A. (2016). Cristina de Middel: The photographer of the Post-Truth age. [online]. Available at:
(Accessed 2/11/2020)
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