Pocallum — Festivals

Festival de Blues de Barcelona

Wed, 09 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

The Blues de Barcelona is a different species. The loyalty of its audience, the calibre of musicians who pass through, the care taken with every edition — nothing here is superficial or accidental.

Photographing blues is photographing scars. Every musician carries a story you can see in their hands, their posture, the way they lean into the microphone as if they have something important to tell it.

Not everyone understands the blues at first glance. But everyone understands a photograph that genuinely captures it.

Jornades Xarxa 9 Barris Acull

Sun, 06 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

For almost two decades, 9 Barris Acull was the district’s welcome centre: legal advice on immigration, language workshops, a neighbourhood solidarity network — and every year, a series of talks that put on the table the questions the rest of the city preferred not to face.

Each edition had its theme. In 2017, different perspectives on Islam and racism. In 2018, discriminatory discourse and its alternatives. In 2019, the new demographic landscape and the challenges of coexistence. In 2022, young people, racism and exclusion. These were not consensus events — they were sessions of intellectual confrontation, with people who lived these issues first-hand.

Jazz I Am

Fri, 04 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz I Am is the festival that changes format every year. New venues, new proposals, emerging names alongside established references. Barcelona jazz in a moment of permanent redefinition.

We’ve followed Jazz I Am since the early editions, and every year is different from the last. That’s one of the things we love most: you never quite know where you’re headed or what you’ll find.

Unexpected venues. Groups you’d never heard of. A set that runs long because nobody wants it to end.

FITI — Festival Internacional de Teatre Integratiu

Thu, 03 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

FITI is the festival of Alquimistes Teatre, one of the most established inclusive theatre companies in Spain. More than twenty-five years bringing mixed casts — actors with and without intellectual diversity — to the stage, from Santa Coloma de Gramenet to the world.

Alquimistes Teatre was founded in 1998 with a clear idea: inclusive theatre is not second-tier theatre or therapeutic theatre. It is theatre. And as such, it deserves proper stages, international festivals and photography that shows it as such.

ESMUC End-of-Year Concerts

Wed, 02 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

Every spring, the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya closes the academic year with a series of concerts where students perform under professional conditions. We documented the 2023–2024 edition on film: Leica M6, Summicron 50mm and APX400 pushed to 3200.

ESMUC trains musicians in jazz, classical, traditional and modern music. The end-of-year concerts are not an academic showcase — they are real concerts, played by musicians who are about to step into the professional world.

Festival de Sopes del Món

Tue, 01 Jan 2030 00:00:00 +0000

Every autumn, Nou Barris fills with pots. The Festival de Sopes del Món — Festival of World Soups — proves that a simple bowl of soup can bring people together in ways no politics can manage. Organised by 9 Barris Acull and the Xarxa d’Intercanvi de Coneixements, it has now reached its nineteenth edition.

The festival brings together communities from across the neighbourhood — and the world — around a bowl of soup. Each participant brings their recipe, their story and their table. The result is a gathering that is as much political as gastronomic, in the best sense of both words.

Chinese New Year in Barcelona

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Barcelona’s Chinese community celebrates the lunar new year with dragons, fire, music and food. It is not a spectacle designed for tourists — it is a tradition brought to the street because the street belongs to everyone. A welcoming and extraordinary celebration that keeps growing year after year. Since 2017, we have been there whenever we can.

The celebrations don’t always happen in the same place or on the same date. Sometimes it’s at Parc de l’Estació del Nord. Other times in the city centre, around the Arc de Triomf. The display put on by residents of Chinese origin is extraordinary — both in central Barcelona and in the neighbourhoods where they have built roots. In 2026, across two days, we documented two editions: the central Barcelona celebration and the Nou Barris one, where the community organises its own event along Via Júlia down to Plaça Ángel Pestaña.

Carnestoltes in Nou Barris

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nou Barris celebrates Carnestoltes in the street — and it does it properly. The Gran Rua Central winds through the district with comparses, costumes and batucadas. Those who want to keep going head to Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris, where the Gran Ball de Carnestoltes runs until the night runs out.

We have been documenting Nou Barris Carnestoltes since 2016. Two distinct moments: the daytime parade, with February light and families in the street, and the Ateneu party, where the energy is something else entirely. Artificial light, movement, costumes that looked one way in the sun and look completely different on the dance floor.

Sax-o-Rama

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sax-o-Rama is the international saxophone festival created by Dani Nel·lo — a reference point in its field that brings saxophonists from across the world to La Paloma year after year.

La Paloma has its own character, and Sax-o-Rama makes the most of it: concerts mixing musicians from Japan, the Caribbean and across Spain alongside the Barcelona Big Blues Band as the connecting thread. Every edition is different, but the saxophone is always at the centre.

Ciutat Flamenco Barcelona

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A spectacular festival where dance is almost more of a protagonist than flamenco itself. A brilliant initiative from Taller de Músics.

Ciutat Flamenco is the Barcelona festival that treats flamenco as what it is: a living art, in permanent evolution, capable of absorbing contemporary dance, audiovisual research and interdisciplinary collaboration without losing its roots.

It started at Nau Bostik, when I photographed the presentation of Vanesa Aibar and the Estampa collective’s Cristalización IV. There I ran into programmer Lluís Cabrera, whom I already knew from Flamenco de Barrio, and with the organisation’s permission I was able to cover the rest of the festival.

Flamenco de Barrio

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Flamenco de Barrio takes flamenco to the street. Literally. Squares, courtyards, everyday spaces in Nou Barris where something that shouldn’t fit suddenly fits perfectly.

Some festivals bring the audience to the artists. Flamenco de Barrio does the opposite: it brings the artists to the people who are already there.

Photographing in natural afternoon light, in spaces not designed for performance, with the audience so close they become part of the image — this is a different school. Here we’ve learnt that the best photograph isn’t always the perfect one.

Sopar d'Entitats del Casal de Barri Prosperitat

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Every autumn, the organisations and collectives of the neighbourhood gather at Casal de Barri Prosperitat to take stock, welcome new members and reconnect with those no longer as active. The Sopar d’Entitats (Organisations’ Dinner) is an annual tradition mixing debate, food, music and comedy — almost a festival, even if it doesn’t go by that name.

We play at home here. La Prosperitat is our neighbourhood, the Casal is our space, and the organisations that come — we know them. There is a warmth and a horizontality to this dinner that no conventional festival can replicate: nobody is the audience, everyone is a participant.

Clot amb Blues

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Among the finest festivals there are. All soul and small format. Proximity with the performers, with the organisation, and everything made with great care and love.

El Clot is a neighbourhood that has made blues its own. Clot amb Blues brings the music to the neighbourhood’s own spaces — squares, venues, local facilities — with the intention of making music something that belongs to residents, not just to audiences.

Small in scale, large in content. Live concerts, street processions, proposals that go beyond the standard concert. The festival understands that neighbourhood music is, by definition, the kind that takes root deepest.

Calella Harmònica Festival

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The harmonica looks like a small instrument. In Calella, it becomes enormous.

The Calella Harmònica Festival is an annual festival dedicated to the harmonica as a cross-genre instrument: blues, jazz, bluegrass, folk. Small, but indispensable. A wonderful place where people love music with every breath.

Live concerts, masterclasses for all levels, photography exhibitions and a closing paella that proves well-made festivals end with people at the centre, not backstage.

We arrived as guests — not to photograph, but to exhibit. That changes everything about your relationship with a place.

Circus Show — International Exchange

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Circus School of the Ateneu Popular de 9 Barris has spent years training young people from the district in circus disciplines. The Mostra de Circ is the moment when everything they have learned comes out into the street — literally. An open space, in the middle of the square, with the neighbourhood as audience and the students as protagonists.

Circus is very present in Nou Barris. And it is no coincidence: it is a tool for social transformation that the district has understood and supported for decades. The Ateneu Popular de 9 Barris is its centre of gravity — but circus appears in the neighbourhood centres, the squares, youth festivals, international exchanges.

VijazZ Festival

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

VijazZ arrives and Vilafranca del Penedès transforms. Some of our most treasured images were born here — in impossible lighting conditions, a few metres from the musicians.

VijazZ is the festival Vilafranca del Penedès deserves: honest, close-up, with the best musicians anyone could bring to the territory without anyone expecting it. The European and American jazz scene shows up in small format, face to face with the audience, no barriers.

Pícnic de Blues

Sun, 18 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Every May, Capibola Blues brings blues music to Parc Central de Nou Barris as part of the district’s neighbourhood festivities. A blanket on the grass, a cool box, live music and spring sunshine — or rain, which has also happened. Since 2013, we have been there.

The Pícnic de Blues is a free, neighbourhood event with no pretensions, which for some reason always works. Perhaps because blues in a park, with people lying on the grass and kids running through the crowd, is exactly the right setting for this music.

Nou Barris meets New Orleans

Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Every spring, the Ateneu Popular 9 Barris builds an imaginary bridge between Nou Barris and New Orleans. Not a tourist postcard — a recognition that both cities share something fundamental: music as a tool for social cohesion in neighbourhoods that need it.

The formula is simple and effective: a second line through the district streets, a brass band that brings people out onto their balconies, DJ sets with a soundsystem, Creole food, and a closing concert. All in one day, for everyone.

Arundo Donax

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In La Pobla de Híjar, a small village in Lower Aragon, a biennial festival celebrates the musical reed — the Arundo donax plant used to make the reeds and mouthpieces for wind instruments across the world. From bagpipes and gaitas to saxophones, clarinets and oboes.

The festival is organised by the Musical Association “Fuera de Tono” with support from the local government, the Comarca del Bajo Martín and the Provincial Council of Teruel. In just a few years it has become the village’s flagship cultural event.

Barcelona Tattoo Expo · BAUM

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Barcelona Tattoo Expo has been, for more than two decades, the most important tattoo art festival in southern Europe. We have been there from the beginning — as the organisation’s official photographers, edition after edition.

Tattooing is an art you live on your skin, in every sense. Photographing it means entering a world of masters, schools, traditions that travel across continents and converge in Barcelona’s exhibition halls three days a year.