Krajnak, Tarrah

American, b. 1979 Peru

BiographyTarrah Krajnak works in performance, video, poetry, installation, and photography to consider the body in photographs, while also investigating her connections to the earth, histories, and creative practices of other women. In her Automatic Rocks/Excavation series, Krajnak pairs images of herself holding a large stone with a photograph of a page from her notebook showing her handwriting after she utilized the Surrealist method of automatic writing, or écriture automatique. This process involves accessing the subconscious mind by deeply relaxing and letting go of the logical mind to allow for open creativity. Krajnak places her body close to the rocks in this writing exercise to access the primordial wisdom of nature.

In For Maria Ayni, from the Offerings for my Sister series, Krajnak arranges plant materials onto photosensitive paper as offerings during a ceremony of gratitude and healing for the earth that she learned from her sister that was passed down through their ancestral line. Ayni is a Quechua word for balance, and Krajnak uses the cyanotype process to visualize the passage of time, the imprint of her own body performing the ritual, and the presence of her materials. As an additional act of gratitude, her titles in the series pay tribute to women who influence her practice. Maria, a common name in Latin America that is similar to Jane Doe, is the name that was given to replace her sister’s Indigenous name when she was adopted by Catholic nuns.

Tarrah Krajnak received the Jury Prize of the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at Les Rencontres d'Arles, and a Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies. Her photographs are held in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, England; Centre Pompidou, France; Museum Ludwig, Germany; and the Pinault, France. Her work was featured in the 2022-2023 Museum of Contemporary Photography exhibition, Refracting Histories.