Sofia López Mañán

Sofía López Mañán (Argentina) is an Argentinian artist, visual storyteller, National Geographic Explorer and 2024 Vital Impacts Grant recipient whose work brings together photography, philosophy, anthropology and ecology. Guided by curiosity and a deep respect for the living world, she explores environmental and social issues while questioning the ways humans define, observe and relate to nature.

After studying Fine Arts and photography, Sofía found her creative direction while working at the former Buenos Aires Zoo during its transformation and the relocation of its animals. Surrounded by biologists, veterinarians, caregivers and conservationists, she became increasingly interested not only in the animals themselves, but in the ideas humans construct around nature, freedom, captivity and wilderness. These questions became the foundation for a long-term artistic practice rooted in research, reflection and dialogue.

Sofía’s projects move between science, culture, ritual and storytelling. She has documented the long journeys of elephants from former zoos to a sanctuary in Brazil, spent years working with Andean condors and the communities involved in their conservation, and explored the cultural, ecological and political relationships between people and bees. Her long-term project El Libro de la Naturaleza asks viewers to reconsider what they understand as “nature” — and whether humans can ever truly be separated from it.

For Sofía, photography is not simply a way of recording the world, but a form of listening and participating. Rather than approaching a project with fixed answers, she allows research, relationships and lived experience to lead toward new questions. Through images, stories and a touch of philosophy, mythology and magic, her work invites us to see ourselves not as observers standing outside nature, but as part of a complex living world to which we already belong.