Carlos Canal
Archivo Sombra
Carlos Canal uses photography as an interface that connects the inner self with the external world, questioning reality and highlighting how its fundamental principles resemble those of life itself. In our culture, photography is intimately linked to memories, recollection, and forgetting. Memories are movements of the heart, relived through internal emotions, while recollection acts as a colder reaction, detached from emotion and rooted in the unconscious.
For a photographer, the archive is more than just a collection of documents; it is a record of traces, encounters, and fragments of life that endure in the image, resisting oblivion. The archive, inherently tied to destruction and death, represents a chronology of lives already lived—a space of both origin and end, filled with secrets and shadows. Archivo Sombra emerges from this hidden place, where captured moments are preserved to defy forgetfulness. It is an act of resistance, bringing to light what has remained dormant over time. In this way, photography becomes a dialogue between light and shadow, reality and fiction, memory and oblivion, life and death.
For the curator of Archivo Sombra, Rafael Doctor, the exhibition presents a unique altarpiece by Carlos Canal, revealing vital fragments once dormant in negatives, now resurfacing as shadows of the past.
Carlos Canal (Grajal de Campos)
Carlos Canal is a doctor, photographer, and educator. His work explores the relationship between photography, identity, and memory.
Since 1984, he has developed a multidisciplinary practice that integrates imagery as both a means of expression and therapy, highlighting his pioneering project Recuperar la luz, which was among the first to use photography with leukemia patients.
He has served as a curator and director of the Fotomanías festival and has taught at institutions such as Complutense, Autónoma, and Europea universities in Madrid, as well as Goldsmiths University of London.
Since 2014, he has deepened his research on the therapeutic uses of photography.
His recent work, Archivo Sombra, brings together more than a hundred images exploring the duality between memory and oblivion, light and shadow, reflecting his interest in emotional connections and introspection. The exhibition has been showcased in cultural venues such as El Palacín in León and Sala Rivadavia in Cádiz, further establishing his artistic and pedagogical career.
