Vanessa Luz Vargas
And They All Came Back (2017-2018)We have an archive of family photos tucked away in the closets of my childhood home. My mother has multiple albums. My father has a single folder. In them I find myself looking at younger versions of the people who raised me in a country I barely know and surrounded by family and friends I have never met. This work is an attempt to relate, to connect deeper to that history of my family, to find where I stand as a person of Peruvian descent living in suburban America.Installation pieces were co-designed with my father and handcrafted out of pine wood in the basement of my childhood home.
Argentina | Austria | Belgium | Bolivia | Canada | Chile | Colombia | Croatia | Czechia | France | Germany | Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Monaco | Netherlands | Peru | Portugal | Puerto Rico | Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain | Switzerland | United Kingdom | United States
b. 1996, New JerseyEDUCATION
2018
BFA in Photography, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NYEXHIBITIONS
2026
Unbound Art Book Fair, RISD, Providence, RI2025
Jersey Art Book Fair, Dense Magazine, Monira Foundation x Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ2024
A place to put it, Brooklyn Film Camera, Brooklyn, NY
“Altered Memories” curated by Dominique Muñoz, UnBound! Edition, The Curated Fridge w/ Candela Books + Gallery, Richmond, VA2020
There/Their/They’re, Oranbeg Press, Brooklyn, NY2019
Every Woman Biennial, La MaMa Galleria & 222 Bowery, New York, NY2018
Hive Mind, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
Draft 15, The Yards Collective, Rochester, NY
And They All Came Back, Pratt Photography Gallery, Brooklyn, NYPUBLICATIONS
2025
Pearl Press, Issue 26: Seed (digital)2021
Color Tag, Volume 2 (print)2020
Pearl Press, Issue 2: Cowboys (digital)
Soft Lightning, Volume 2: Connection (print)
Darkside Collective, Volume 2: A New Normal (print)
Gibberish One, Volume 1 (digital)2018
Draft Magazine, Volume 15 (print)PRESS
Prattfolio. Not Only a Place, But a Feeling. November 30 2023
NYC Photo Community Newsletter. Issue No. 73. February 26 2021AWARDS
2018
Distinction in Photography Award, Pratt Photography DepartmentRELATED WORK EXPERIENCE
Conveyor Studio, Book Binder, 2024 - Present
Feather Creative, Producer, 2018 - 2023
D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers, Sales & Marketing Intern, 2018