Guest Session: Ana Paganini - Portrait & Documentary Photographer

Anna Paganini, a Portuguese portrait and documentary photographer, shared how photography became a way for her to preserve memory, explore identity, and connect intimate personal history with broader cultural stories. Her relationship with photography began in childhood through her father, a photographer whose influence continued after his death, when she began documenting his house as a way of holding onto memory. That experience shaped a practice centered on archives, family history, disappearing places, religious processions, historical reenactments, and long-term relationships with the people she photographs. Anna emphasized that strong documentary work often develops slowly. She returns to communities over years, researches historical context, follows unexpected family connections, and allows new layers of meaning to emerge over time. Her work repeatedly examines the relationship between presence and absence—how photographs can preserve people, traditions, and places even after they are gone. She also spoke about the ethical responsibility of working closely with subjects, especially in difficult or tragic circumstances. Rather than sensationalizing people, she tries to honor their complexity and humanity. Her presentation showed how photography can function as a conversation across generations, linking memory, history, place, community, and the photographer’s own life.