*Immaculate Conception,* 1999 © 2021 Alessandra Sanguinetti / Magnum Photos.

Written by Trip Avis

Photo Edited by Kelly Woodyard

Relativity comes with perspective, that profoundly intimate way of seeing the world. What may seem benign or inconspicuous to one viewer can take on an enhanced, elevated meaning to another. In doing so, it can reveal something about ourselves. That is the case with the lives of two Argentinian women, the cousins Guillermina ‘Guille’ Aranciaga and Belinda Stutz. On the women who have become her greatest muses, Alessandra Sanguinetti states: “If you’d walked down the dirt roads of this vast panorama, passing by two girls playing outside, you’d have seen no more than two small points on the horizon, but to me, the two girls were exceptional, as they are to this day.” The Adventures of Guille and Belinda, which will be on display at Paris’ Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson between January 30th and May 19th, 2024, seeks to illuminate the exceptionality of these women while exploring the passage of time from the whimsy and growth of girlhood to the strength and defiance of womanhood.

The early images of their adventure date back to 1999, the fateful year that enmeshed their lives with that of Sanguinetti and brought their beguiling charm alive before her camera lens. Portraits like Immaculate Conception and The Funeral (both 1999), while whimsical and lighthearted in their staging, see the girls role-playing motherhood and grief, the latter an inevitability accompanying aging. The images perfectly encapsulate the ‘play pretend’ and fantasy commonly practiced by children. They display a dreamy blurring of the lines of reality. At their most vibrant and powerful, our childhood imaginations transform the mundane nature of the ‘real world,’ a world of adults and responsibility, one with little magic. Something as seemingly trivial as playing make-believe reveals the cousins’ understanding of their eventual growth and roles in adulthood.

As the years pass, the succeeding portraits juxtapose this playful insouciance. None, perhaps more than Oriana, First Day (2009) and Nine Months (2007). In the former image, the new mother, Guille, looks out with apprehension and newfound responsibility as she breastfeeds her infant. Something dazzlingly poetic lies in the portrait, taken a decade after 1999’s Immaculate Conception. It sees a now-adult Guille come full circle from playing at being a mother to being a mother. While the earlier portrait saw a careless look of glee on her face, the spiritual successor accurately reflects early motherhood. In Nine Months, a striking portrait of a near-due Belinda brandishing a knife, there is exhaustion yet undeniable defiance in the soon-to-be mother’s eyes. The years have shaped the once-playful cousins into strong adult women ready to tackle the roles they practiced for.

Sanguinetti’s portraits capture an adventure, perhaps the most important and universal adventure of all: life. With her careful, nuanced perspective, brimming with love and admiration, the artist welcomes us into the cousins’ world while meditating on the transformative nature of time and the growth and lessons that are its fruit.