PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf
A Photography & Visual Arts Podcast

Alessandra Sanguinetti - Episode 31

3 years ago

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and Magnum photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti discuss her books, On the Sixth Day and The Adventures of Belinda and Guille and the Meaning of their Enigmatic Dreams. Alessandra and Sasha discuss what informs her work, from her rural beginnings and desire to be a storyteller to illness and a moment of questioning her own abilities.

https://alessandrasanguinetti.com

Sanguinetti was born in New York in 1968, and brought up in Argentina where she lived from 1970 until 2003. Her interest in photography began aged 9 when she poured over her mother’s collection of books by Michael Lesy, Dorothea Lange and others. She studied Anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and General Studies at the International Center of Photography.

In 1996 she began working on a series eventually titled, On the Sixth Day, which explored the complex relationship between man and domesticated animals in the countryside in Argentina. Three years into this project, she turned her attention to two nine-year-old cousins, Belinda and Guille, whose grandmother’s farm had been the subject of Sixth Day. Sanguinetti followed the two girls’ for five years, taking pictures embarked on a life long project, collaboratively photographing the two girls as they grew up and presently as adult women. The first five years culminated in a much-acclaimed monograph, The Adventures of Belinda and Guille and the Meaning of their Enigmatic Dreams (2010).

Sanguinetti is a recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and a Hasselblad Foundation grant. Her photographs are included in public and private collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has photographed for the The New York Times Magazine, LIFE, Newsweek, and New York Magazine and is currently based in San Francisco

Sanguinetti has been a member Magnum since 2007. She is currently based in California.

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From the PhotoWork Foundation, the PhotoWork Podcast, hosted by Sasha Wolf, features in-depth conversations with influential figures in the fine art photography world, including photographers, curators, and publishers. Through personal and insightful discussions, the podcast serves as a vital resource for artists, students, and professionals—offering inspiration, education, and a platform for anyone passionate about photography. The PhotoWork Foundation supports the development and education of post-documentary photographic artists and cultivates an audience for their work. Through a diverse program of outreach to individual artists and those who will be enriched by the results of their sustained efforts, the Foundation seeks to empower an aspect of photography that is most often not commercially viable but is essential to the collective understanding of what it looks like to be living in society today. To learn more about the podcast, see additional content related to individual episodes and other opportunities for artists visit: www.photowork.foundation and follow us on Instagram @photowork.foundation.