# Elena Ochoa Foster

Elena Ochoa Foster, Baroness Foster of Thames Bank (née Elena Fernández-Ferreiro López de Ochoa) is a Spanish publisher and art curator, and formerly a professor of psychopathology. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Ivorypress.

## Life

Elena Ochoa Foster was a tenured professor of psychopathology at the Complutense University of Madrid for almost two decades. She was honorary professor at King's College London until 2001. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake postdoctoral studies at the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 1996, in London, she founded Ivorypress, a private organisation that undertakes publishing and curatorial activities. Their premises include an art gallery, a publishing house and a bookshop focusing on photography, architecture and contemporary art. She remains its chief executive officer.
She has curated international exhibitions in close collaboration with the Ivorypress team, including 'C on Cities' (10th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, 2006), 'Blood on Paper' (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2008), 'Real Venice' (54th Venice Art Biennale, Venice, 2011), 'Real Venice' (Somerset House, London, 2012) and 'ToledoContemporánea' (Fundación El Greco, Toledo, 2014).
From 2021 to 2022, to mark the occasion of Ivorypress' twenty-fifth anniversary, she curated a multi-institutional exhibitions programme involving museums and libraries across Europe and the United States.
Ochoa served on the jury of the Princess of Asturias Awards for its Communication and Humanities category from 2008 to 2010 and served on its Arts category jury from 2013 to 2017. She is a member of MoMA's Library Council and serves on the advisory board of the Prix Pictet photography award. As a patron, she supports a variety of museums and foundations including the Museo del Prado, alongside several international schools of contemporary art and photography, such as Spain's Academy of the Arts and the Cinematographic Sciences. She has served as Chair of the Tate Galleries International Council and as Trustee of the Tate Foundation as well as the Isamu Noguchi Foundation.
She serves as part of the board of trustees of the Serpentine Gallery (London, UK) as well as being the chair of its International Council since 2017. She has also been a Member of the Organising Committee of the Golden Trezzini Awards for Architecture and Design (St. Petersburg, Russia) since 2021. Elena Ochoa Foster is vice president and trustee of the Norman Foster Foundation in London and Madrid. She is also part of the board of directors of the American Friends of the Norman Foster Foundation.

## Personal life

In 1996, Ochoa married English architect Norman Foster. In 1999, he was raised to the peerage giving her the title Lady Foster of Thames Bank.
She lives and works between Switzerland, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.

## Recognition and awards
### Academic and media career

* National Award for Scientific Research. Entidad Abelló, Spain, 1984
* Joint Spanish-American Committee, Fulbright Scholarship, Spain, 1985.
* Research Grant, Veterans Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health, USA, 1986.
* Research Grant, National Fund for the Development of Scientific and Technological Research, Spain 1988.
* European Award for Mass Media and Television, Premio Ondas, Spain, 1990.
* National Prize of the Royal College of Psychology for the Best Communication in Mass Media. 1991, 1993 and 1995.

### Film producer career

How much does your building weigh, Mr. Foster?:
* TCM Audience Award for Best Documentary at the European Film Festival in San Sebastian, Spain, 2010
* First Prize of the Jury of Docville International Documentary Festival, Leuven, Belgium, 2010
* Best Cinematography Award at the International Documentary section of the Sichuan TV Festival Chinese festival (SCTVF), 2011
* Nominated for the Goya Awards in the category of Best Documentary, Madrid, Spain, 2011
Shooting the Mafia:
* Audience Award Brussels International Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 2019.
* Best Documentary Award Batumi International ArtHouse Film Festival, Batumi, Georgia, 2019
* Guerrilla Staff Award Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy, 2019

### Publisher and Curator career

Source:
* Gold Medal Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, USA, 2012
* Real Fundación de Toledo Award in the 'Curator' category for the exhibition 'ToledoContemporánea', Spain, 2015
* Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award, Spain, 2016
* Ibero-American Patronage Award, Spain, 2016