Sofía López Mañán
Bio
Sofía López Mañan is an Argentine photographer with a degree in filmmaking based in Buenos Aires.
She has more than 10 years of experience documenting themes related to human relationship with biodiversity. She currently studies naturalism and mycology to acquire further knowledge in biology and conservation laws. Sofía has worked with NGOs such as Rewilding, Santuarios do Brasil, Perpetual Spirit and for the past five year she has been an active collaborator Andean Condor Project (PCCA). She has also worked with the Argentine Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development in illegal animal traffic investigation. As a Visual Storytelling National Geographic Explorer, she has recently finished the project The Bird King on condor conservation and its relationship with Andean cosmogony.
She was also a recipient of the National Geographic Emergency Funds for Journalists where she documented the transfer of an elephant during the pandemic to a sanctuary in Brazil. This project was longlisted in the World Press Photo. She is also an active team member on the project The Earth Kidney together with Sebastian Lopez Brach.
Statement
The pieces presented on this occasion come from her latest project: »El libro de la naturaleza.« In this research the Argentine photographer takes her visual reflection on the
artificial difference produced by Western Man between nature and culture to a higher critical limit. In this sense, this photographic series shows a set of images in which the
different regimes of existence (animal, human, cultural, natural, artificial, et cetera) are mixed and confused, following the same aesthetic strategies as her previous projects
—staging, theatricalization, storytelling, among others.— Therefore, these photographs question our rigid understanding of the spaces reserved for Man and those
for animals, because, after all, are we not also animals? López Mañán can be defined, then, as a »storyteller« who seeks to renew our understanding and our relationship with the living through her stories.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
