José Sarmento Matos
London, Reino Unido
José Sarmento Matos is a 35-year-old Portuguese
documentary and unit photographer. He has been
based between London and Lisbon for the past 10
years.
He has collaborated and published his work with
HBO Max, HISTORY Channel, A+E Networks,
The New York Times, Bloomberg, Newsweek, The
Passenger, Washington Post, New Yorker, National
Geographic, LA Times, The Guardian Weekend, Le
Monde and Microsoft, among others.
Apart from working on commissions internationally
as both a documentary and unit photographer in
the past 10 years, José has developed a hand
of independent documentary work focusing on
medium/long-term projects on themes related to
identity and social inequality and publishing his
work on different magazines, books and in group
and solo exhibitions worldwide.
In 2020, after receiving an emergency grant from
the National Geographic Society to work on a
collaboration with the Jamaica community in
Seixal, Portugal, on racial and housing inequality
in times of pandemic, JSM produced and directed
a film - JAMAIKA - shown at Doc Lisboa 2021 and
exhibited in an exhibition at MAAT museum, in the
same year.
In 2024, after three and half years of
accompanying families from Jamaica
neighbourhood in their struggle for decent housing,
José published the book JAMAIKA, which tells
the story of the community and the process of
rehousing the families and the demolition of
the neighbourhood. The book was launched in
Portugal, Lisbon, at NARRATIVA gallery with a
solo exhibitions and internationally, at the Bronx
Documentary Center in NYC.
Back in 2014, JSM completed his master’s degree
in documentary photography and photojournalism
at the London College of Communication, where
he taught documentary photography between
2016 and 2021. José won the Estação Imagem
award in Portugal in 2020, and 2015, he was
considered by Magnum Photos one of the 30 best
photographers in the world under the age of 30 (30
under 30)
Sarmento Matos became a Leica Camera
Ambassador in August 2024.
2015 - 30 under 30 Magnum Photos.
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