The Passing of Time: Alessandra Sanguinetti Goes Home
Alessandra Sanguinetti considers the effects of time on her childhood home
While ‘home’ often refers to a fixed address, it can also represent the familial space. In her series, Magnum photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti maps the architecture of her childhood house, photographing the nooks and crannies, while exposing its temporal shifts. The Argentinian photographer shows portraits of family members, whose skin each displays the wear and tear of time, such as wrinkles and scratches, alongside inanimate objects that have ostensibly remained intact.
Sanguinetti produced the series for Magnum Home, a worldwide project whereby sixteen Magnum photographers were given an open brief by Fujifilm that asked them to reflect on the universal theme of ‘home.’ As the group exhibition closes in Tokyo, she discusses the fragility of human life and the passing of time, examining how photography aided her in accepting these, sometimes difficult, realizations.
“I have two homes. One is my childhood home in Buenos Aires, and the other is in California where I live now. For this project I decided to linger behind in the former. The hallways, rooms and objects were in the same exact place they had been in for 40 years, as if nothing had changed.”
"This work isn’t a reflection of my childhood, which was a happy one, but more of a goodbye to it."
- Alessandra Sanguinetti
“This work isn’t a reflection of my childhood, which was a happy one, but more of a goodbye to it and a beginning to come to terms with so many years already gone by and my parents being vulnerable. I try to see them and the apartment I grew up in as it is now—with all its remnants of the past intact, except for traces of time etched on skin and surfaces.”
Magnum Home, powered by Fujifilm, closes in Tokyo on July 30.
