Biography

(Taken from Manuel Bayo Gisbert's website) b. 1997, Mexico City. I am a Mexican photographer and filmmaker. My work exists between journalism and art; it focuses on my relationship with the history of my homeland. I am currently expanding and completing chapters of my extensive project Monument, on enforced disappearance, state terrorism and the history of violence in Mexico; it includes sections of both still and moving images. In 2025, the American Society of Magazine Editors named me a finalist for a National Magazine Award in the category of Best Overall Photography for my op-ed Looking for the Missing People of Mexico (New York Times, 2024). I was a nominee of the World Press Photo’s 2025 Joop Swart Masterclass. In September 2024, I exhibited Monument in my first solo show, with the venue being the Rayburn House Office Building of the United States Congress, in Washington D.C. It was organized and funded by Amnesty International, the National Security Archive, Global Exchange and the Latin American Working Group. I was a finalist of the Counter Histories initiative at the Magnum Foundation and have taken part in activities and/or exhibitions with the VII Foundation, CaSa (Centro de las Artes San Agustín), Festival Internacional de Fotografía en Valparaíso (FIFV), Kranj Foto Festival and the Hamburg Portfolio Review. I have been a student of artists such as Antoine D’Agata, Sohrab Hura, Newsha Tavakolian, Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, Sabiha Çimen, Joan Fontcuberta, Laida Lertxundi, Lynne Sachs, Felipe Cazals and Alonso Ruizpalacios. I was a recipient of the Jan Mulder Scholarship, a full scholarship to attend the International Center of Photography’s (ICP) One-Year Certificate Program in Photojournalism, from which I graduated in 2023. I studied a bachelor’s in film directing at Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) and was part of the 2021 class of Centro de la Imagen’s Seminario de Producción Fotográfica. My short films have been exhibited at Mexico’s Cineteca Nacional and other venues in the United Sates, South Korea and Russia. In 2020, I curated a large retrospective of the works of experimental filmmaker R. Bruce Elder at Cineteca Nacional and Mexico’s Institut Français d’Amérique Latine (IFAL). I am a member of the Brigada Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas (National Brigade of Search of Missing People).

Personal Info