ABOUT

Francesca Sarpola is a queer photographer, storyteller, collector, witch, and future ancestor. Self portraiture, sacred spaces, gender identity, body modification and the wheel of the year are major themes they explore.

 

Francesca fell in love with the alchemy of B&W analog photography upon being introduced to the darkroom their freshman year of high school. The process of creation is often just as, if not more important, than the final print. The majority of their work is analog, allowing access to magic that happens when light and darkness mix with chemistry and substrate to create something tangible out of that which was once fleeting and impermanent. The creation of their art often takes place within a ceremonial container.  Multiple exposures, created in camera and guided by divine timing, show the secret intersections hidden to us and our linear experiences of time.

 

Francesca is entering their thesis year of The Photographic Center Northwest's certificate program. They live and create work on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Duwamish People in what is now called Seattle, Washington. While not creating work, they can often be found beneath the mossy limbs of their arboreal ancestors.