Balam is an independent annual magazine based in Buenos Aires, Argentina that is focused on Latin American contemporary photography, with special emphasis on queer artists and the particularities of their regional context. Originally established as an online magazine in 2015, it became a print publication from its fifth publication in early 2018 onwards. Balam has had ten issues, six of which were released in print form. Although presented as a magazine, Balam's concept is closer to that of a photobook or an art object: each issue starts with a unique theme, selected contributors and specific printing features for that particular issue. The most recent, eleventh edition of the magazine, titled "Radical" and focusing on queer community archives, was launched in 2025.
Balam is recognized as Latin America's first and only queer magazine dedicated to photography. According to Dalia Al-Dujaili of the British Journal of Photography, the publication "offers a vital platform for the communities, experiences and landscapes both of the past and the present which face stigmatisation and censorship across [the region]." Each issue of Balam is built through an open call for photographers from all over the world to submit their work. It has showcased both emerging photographers as well as well-established names.
In 2022, Balam received the Shannon Michael Cane Award given to emerging artists and publishers by the NY Art Book Fair. In 2023, the magazine produced the photobook Playfulness in collaboration with the American independent publisher Pomegranate Press, its eighth issue was exhibited at the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA), and its ninth issue was the subject of an exhibition at the Brazilian Institute of Architects, São Paulo. The same year, Balam won the "Photography Content of the Year, Print or Online" prize at the Lucie Awards. Several issues of Balam have been acquired by the libraries of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, the Getty Research Institute, and Michigan State University.
In 2025, e-flux announced that Balam was one of the recipients of the third edition of the Fundación Ama Amoedo Grants, intended for the editing and printing of the next edition of the magazine, which will be focused on the Caribbean LGBTQ+ community.
Concept Balam is a photography magazine that is published in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was conceived in 2015 by Luis Juárez, a university student from Honduras who had emigrated to Buenos Aires in 2009, but was then living in Santiago, Chile. The creation of the project was a response to the art and photography scene of South America, characterized by limited cultural funding, "stuffy institutionalism", and the prevalence of "hetero-cis white content". Interviewed in 2021, Juárez stated that the magazine "arose in response to how photography is being fractured, unable to represent and make visible dissident and marginalised communities. (...) [I wanted to explore] realities that are outside the norm." The term "balam"—meaning "jaguar" in the languages of the Maya peoples—is a reference to the long iconographic tradition of the animal in Mesoamerica, as well as a homage to Juárez' Honduran origin, who felt the name "refers to passion".
Although presented as a magazine, the conceptual intent of Balam is closer to that of a photobook or an art object: each issue is created from scratch, with a unique theme, selected contributors and specific printing features designed for that particular issue. Each release of Balam is built around a theme from which an open call for photographers is put out. The direction and content of each installment are built around these submissions. Interviewed by ELISAVA in 2024, Juárez explained the importance of these calls: "The open call mechanism is the main reason why the project exists. It shapes us, reaffirms us and acts as a situational x-ray of what is happening both in our continent and beyond. The call is open to any person or project regardless of geography." Since the release of its first printed issue, Balam has been presented and distributed in art galleries and independent bookstores in cities such as Buenos Aires, Santiago, London, New York City, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Melbourne, among others. In order for Balam to have its own space for dissemination outside of bookstores or museums, the magazine's team also created the Feria Migra in 2018, an art book fair devoted to independent publications and printed art that is mainly held in Buenos Aires and has been carried out several times a year since then. In addition to the magazine, Balam also organizes workshops, talks and screening cycles, in addition to creating specific content for its online platform.
Balam has been considered the only project of its kind in Argentina and, broadly speaking, in Latin America as a whole, so it mainly takes publications from outside the continent as reference points. It is focused on the contemporary photography of Latin America, with special emphasis on queer realities and the peculiarities of their regional context. In 2024, the British Journal of Photography described Balam as the first and only queer magazine dedicated to photography in Latin America. The magazine also explores a variety of social issues that are specially prominent in the region, including racism, violence, immigration and marginalisation, among others. The magazine presents itself with the aim of "promoting new ways of showing photography from a Latin American point of view". Júarez has also described Balam as a "response to the photography system, to the lack of visibility, and to understanding the importance of the decentralisation from the status quo", and noted that in 2024 that it had "become a documentary manifesto, a reaffirmation of who we are and a record of the passing of the identities of the LGBTQ+ community." Writing for AnOther magazine in 2021, Dominique Sisley noted that Balam "works on two levels. On the first, it spotlights the more serious issues faced by Latin America's LGBTQ+ community, highlighting its injustices and forgotten history. At the same time, it opens up the conversation, celebrating the more mundane, everyday experiences to encourage relatability and accessibility." Dalia Al-Dujaili of the British Journal of Photography wrote in 2024:
Balam offers a vital platform for the communities, experiences and landscapes both of the past and the present which face stigmatisation and censorship across Latin America. For this reason, Balam has collective work and community efforts to thank for its livelihood, relying on allies and friends who support the team with various resources. (...) Though they have a lot to learn, the team at Balam is riding a strong wave, having started from zero and being self-taught to working with some of the photography community’s most exciting names, they hope to use their resilience as a tool for continued change in photography and publishing.
Publication history 2015–2021 In its first four issues, Balam was published as an online magazine. The titles and unifying themes of each of these releases are: "Me encantaría sentir algo" (English: "I would love to feel something"; April 2015), "Piel" (English: "Skin"; August 2015), "Género" (English: "Gender"; December 2015) and "Extranjerismos" (English: "Foreignness"; December 2016). Between 2016 and 2017, Balam sought to consolidate itself as a project that existed outside of digital content, and began to seek funds to take the step towards print publication. This culminated in the awarding of the Mecenazgo program (i.e. patronage) of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, which allowed the magazine to be printed from its fifth publication in early 2018 onwards.
The first printed issue of the magazine (and the fifth overall) was published in 2018 and is centered on the theme of "Metamorfosis" (English: "Metamorphosis"). The choice of topic was inspired by the 1915 novella of the same name by Franz Kafka. The sixth issue of Balam was published two years later and revolves around the theme of "Mestizx", a "Latin term for mixed-racial heritage." The magazine explained the idea behind this theme: "We see individuals as mixed beings, mestizx in blood, skin, inspiration and gender. We would like to ask in what ways you see our generation as mestizx. This issue seeks to empower the concept of mestizx and all those working with it." According to Matt Alagiah of It's Nice That, the issue "challenges perceptions of established beauty and aims to spark conversations about patriarchal white heteronormativity." Among the works included, the "Mestizx" issue features photographs from Sunil Gupta's 1976 series "Christopher Street".
The seventh issue of Balam was published in 2021 and is organized under the topic of "Fantasía" (English: "Fantasy"). According to Juárez, the idea of "Fantasía" was born during the production of "Mestizx", as it "aroused a curiosity to know where fantasies arose from, what it is like to create 'forbidden' things, make our own worlds far from what is established and regulated." AnOthers Dominique Sisley described it as "loose theme that refers vaguely to any 'images, stories, events' that do not 'exist' in a patriarchal society. There are stories on dreams, eroticism, trans rights, and subversive beauty ideals." The issue is subdivided into five sections: "La isla" (English: "The Island"), "Jardines" (English: "Gardens"), "Bellxs" (English: "Beauties"), "Cócteles" (English: "Cocktails"), "Morfeo" (English: "Morpheus") and "Cárites" and (English: "Charities"). It includes photographs from Alejandro Kuropatwa's famous 1996 series Cóctel, which criticized the antiretroviral pills of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
2022–2023 The open call for Balams eight issue began on June 1, 2022, and lasted until July 1, 2022. Published that year, the issue is organized under the theme of "Familias Elegidas" (English: "Chosen Families") and features Brazilian travesti artist Ventura Profana as guest editor. Interviewed by It's Nice That, Juarez stated about the collaboration with the artist: "Who better to travel these worlds than a travesti missionary pastor; a mediator between humanity and divinity; a prophet of dissident lives, of their multiplication and abundance?" The open call for the edition explained that the theme of "Chosen Families" intended to "put out and show through the image stories of families established by choice, to show an evolution in cultural understanding and social norms that cross them and evidence the obsolescence of dominant, determinant and coercive mandates such as marriage and parenthood, generally alien to the problems and desires of queer identities." That year, Balam received the Shannon Michael Cane Award given to emerging artists and publishers by the NY Art Book Fair.