Salvador Pastor (b. 1998, Spain) is a visual artist based in Barcelona working with photography in the field of contemporary documentary practices. His work explores the social structures, belief systems and everyday rituals that shape collective life, often developing through long-term engagement with specific communities and environments.
His projects move between observational and conceptually driven approaches to documentary. Ve Deme: Life in an Orphanage in Ghana (2019) emerged from a period living and volunteering in an orphanage in the Volta Region, documenting daily life within a locally run support network for children. Other works explore forms of collective identity and alternative ways of living, such as Hopeland, an eco-community in southern Greece, and Dancers: The Unseen Reality of Professional Dance, which examines the social and physical realities of dancers’ lives beyond the stage.
Pastor has also addressed moments of social and political transformation. Exodus (2022) documents the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland, focusing on the networks of solidarity formed by citizens and organizations in response to mass displacement.
His recent work increasingly engages with conceptual documentary approaches. Hunting Gamusinos explores rites of passage and the transmission of patriarchal values through the folkloric “gamusino hunt”, using the imaginary animal as a metaphor for the search for masculine identity and belonging. His ongoing project Interstitial Mallorca investigates residual and transitional spaces within the island landscape.
His work has been exhibited in Spain and Italy, including VE DEME: La vida en un orfanato de Ghana at Ca Revolta (Valencia), GURFA at Nuova Officina della Danza (Turin), and MARE TUMM #2 at Es Convent (Mallorca). His photographs have appeared in publications such as Zero Grammi (Italy) and Onet Kobieta (Poland).
Pastor studied Sound and Image Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Cinema and Media Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in New Documentary Photography at LCI Barcelona.