Alessandra Sanguinetti

For more than two decades, American Magnum photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti (1968, New York) has followed the lives of Argentine cousins Guillermina Aranciaga and Belinda Stutz. What begins as a chance encounter on a ranch near Buenos Aires in 1999 grows into a long-term photographic project, in which Sanguinetti captures the dreams, struggles and raw realities of the girls’ rural life. The exhibition ‘The Adventures of Guille and Belinda’ presents Sanguinetti’s poetic, imaginative and poignant work through almost 50 photographs.

When Sanguinetti first meets the children, they are nine and 10 years old. She follows the girls – who become icons in her life and work – as they grow up in rural Argentina, a predominantly male world of gauchos and peasants. This environment amplifies the tension between their innocent childhood and the sometimes harsh reality. The photographs from this period exude a poetic, almost theatrical atmosphere. In her work, you sometimes catch a glimpse of iconic works from art history. For instance, she directs the girls in a photo in which they pose in a barn as Madonna and angel, and in another image floating in a river, inspired by the famous painting Ophelia. Using her analogue Hasselblad camera with 80mm lens, natural light and square framing, the photographer gives the images a soft, timeless look.