Name Alessandra Sanguinetti | Role Photographer | |
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Education International Center of Photography Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, Latin America & Caribbean | ||
Alessandra Sanguinetti - HOME Project Magnum Photos
Alessandra Sanguinetti (1968, New York, New York) is an American photographer. A number of her works have been published and she is a member of Magnum Photos. She has received multiple awards and grants, including the esteemed Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first solo show in the United States was in 2005 at Yossi Milo.
Contents
- Alessandra Sanguinetti HOME Project Magnum Photos
- Life and work
- Publications
- Awards
- Collections
- References
Life and work
Born in New York, Sanguinetti moved to Argentina at the age of two and lived there until 2003. Sanguinetti has stated that she began taking photographs to create a sense of permanence in her life after realizing that "everything is transitory." Currently, she lives in San Francisco, California.
Her most involved project is a documentary photography project about two cousins- Guillermina and Belinda- as they grow up outside of Buenos Aires. The project began in 1999 when Sanguinetti visited her grandmother, Juana, in Argentina. She intended to take pictures of the animals which occupied her grandmother's rural farm. However, she saw potential in her cousins, whom she had previously disregarded. Sanguinetti recounts this, "I was shooting them without even thinking it was work. My first idea was to just do a single story trying to figure out what they imagined life to be, just so I could get into their world." Titled The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams, the project follows them as they fantasize about becoming adults, early motherhood, and becoming young women while their relationship changes. In this particular collection of photographs, Alessandra makes commentaries about feminine conventions of beauty and behavior, as well as gender roles and gender identity. She occasionally ridicules social expectations through her images, which are often satirical in nature. These commentaries are best typified in Petals (2000) and The Couple (1999). Her images focus on the lives of young women and children. Sanguinetti told Vice reporter, Bruno Bayley, "Children are fascinating...As a society, we project so much of our hopes, frustrations, denials, and aspirations on children, and they are so transparent in how they reflect everything that is thrust upon them. How could I not photograph them?"
She has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2007 and is a Magnum Workshop teacher.
She has contributed to Life and The New York Times and been a resident at Light Work.
Publications
Awards
Collections
Sanguinetti's work is held in the following collections: