It’s evening in Mexico City. Crowds fill the streets around the Angel of Independence, lit by a giant screen showing the World Cup. A red billboard nearby spells out “GOOOOOL”. It’s a happy, euphoric scene.
Elsewhere in the city, a mother holds up a megaphone. Her green Mexico shirt bears a photo of a young woman and ‘Desaparecida’, the Spanish word for ‘disappeared’ or ‘missing’.
These two scenes, from the same city during the same tournament, sum up the series by Mexican photographer Iván Macías, who’s been chosen as Photographer of the Year at the Budapest International Foto Awards (BIFA) 2026.
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The World Cup of the Absent explores what happened in Mexico City as it co-hosted the 2026 FIFA World Cup. While millions of people celebrated the national team, mothers marched through the same city to demand answers about loved ones who have disappeared.
“During the 2026 World Cup, Mexico City split into two parallel realities,” Macías writes. His series is an attempt to expose “the cognitive dissonance of an anesthetized nation, juxtaposing mass euphoria with solitary grief”.
Unsettlingly, his pictures move between two worlds. In one, a rain-drenched young fan in a Mexico shirt screams with emotion, surrounded by umbrellas. In another, a fan is thrown into the air through a spray of foam. After the party, a trail of empty cans and bottles drifts through a puddle on the street.
The protest pictures are just as dramatic, but have a different spirit. A masked demonstrator, fist raised, has a message painted on her back: “La pelota vuelve a casa, ¿y nuestros desaparecidos cuándo?” (“The ball comes home, and our disappeared, when?”). Another holds up a sign accusing the government of putting FIFA ahead of local people’s right to move freely around the city.
“Estadio Azteca’s 83,000 seats couldn’t hold the absent,” Macías writes. He argues that the state “facilitates spectacle while sending riot police to those demanding bodies”.
Unusual journey
Macías, who has been named as one of Forbes’ ‘100 Most Creative Mexicans’, has taken an unusual career route into photography. He first trained as an engineer before studying performing arts and science communication.
He then went on to work across urban, architectural, landscape, street, macro and aerial photography before focusing on documentary work. It’s no surprise, then, to see a combination of technical precision with visual storytelling in his photography.
“This year’s winning works remind us of photography’s extraordinary ability to make us stop, look closer, and consider perspectives beyond our own,” says Hannah Lillethun, programme director of BIFA.
Elsewhere in the contest, Tiziana Marchetti was named Discovery of the Year for Odisha-Kanke in the amateur and student division. The series documents families who make traditional mud bricks by hand, turning earth, clay, sand and water into building materials through hard physical work.
You can see all the winners on the BIFA website.
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