Adriana Lestido’s childhood was marked by the absence of her father, who was imprisoned between 1961 and 1966. In 1972, she began studying at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires where she joined TUPAC, the student branch of Vanguardia Comunista (Argentina’s communist party). There she met the activist Guillermo Enrique “Willy” Moralli, her future husband, who was kidnapped and disappeared in 1978 by the ruling military junta. In 1979, she enrolled in the Escuela de Cine y Técnicas Audiovisuales in the nearby city of Avellaneda. After taking an introductory course in photography, she decided to change her major to focus on that medium.

A. Lestido worked as an independent photographer for about two years, starting in 1981. In 1982, during her final year of studies, she covered a flood in Villa Albertina, her first commissioned job as a photojournalist. In the same year, she began to work for the left-wing newspaper La Voz, where she covered major events such as “El Lanusazo” – a violently repressed uprising – and the later march by the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Avellaneda. During the latter protest, she took a picture called Madre e hija de Plaza de Mayo [Plaza de Mayo mother and daughter, 1982], which became emblematic of the movement demanding the return – or the truth about – the tens of thousands of mainly young people made to disappear by the military dictatorship. The battle cry of the mothers of these children was “They were alive when they were taken and we want them back alive”.

In 1985 she was the first woman to join the photography agency Diarios y Noticias (DyN). She also worked for the newspaper Página 12. In 1991 she won a grant from the Hasselblad Foundation that enabled her to make the photo-essay Mujeres presas [Women prisoners, 1991–1993]. In 1995 she abandoned photojournalism altogether and began to teach workshops.

Separation and absence are foundational themes running through her life and work – the absence of her father and husband, and the experience of growing up during the period of forced disappearances in Argentina under the 1976–1983 military dictatorship. They are at the heart of her black and white photo essays such as Hospital Infanto Juvenil [Children’s Hospital, 1986–1988], Madres adolescentes [Teenage mothers, 1988–1989], Madres e hijas [Mothers and daughters, 1995–1999] and Antártida negra [Black Antarctica, 2012]. She uses the absence of colour to produce raw images with multiple readings and resonances, turning away from the logic of photojournalism and instead taking her time, allowing herself to become part of what she is seeing in order to capture it. To make the Mujeres presas series, she spent one day a week for a year with the inmates in a women’s prison in La Plata. The resulting portraits provide an extraordinarily intimate glimpse into their daily lives.

A. Lestido is a towering figure in contemporary Argentine photography. She is renowned for her strong social commitment and political engagement. Among her many awards are a 1995 Guggenheim grant, the first for an Argentine woman photographer. Her work is on view in national and international museums such as the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires and the Houston Fine Arts Museum, as well as private collections.