In the beginning, a horse, a young chicken, and a pig are all photographed at their own eye level. A muscular gray dog makes eye contact as if regarding its maker. A white duck, standing next to a woman’s weather-worn legs, looks upwards as if regarding its keeper. The animals’ presence in these images is both divine and earthly, as was their creation alongside the land and sky in the Book of Genesis. Moments large and small allude to the narrative power of the creation story, rather than being overtly religious.

The photographs in Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day, newly released by MACK as an expanded edition, were made on a farm outside Buenos Aires between 1996 and 2004. (The first edition, originally published by Nazraeli Press in 2005, is now out of print.)

Having grown up around her father’s farm in rural Argentina from the age of seven, Sanguinetti often felt a deep sense of empathy for the flocks of animals. From a first-person vantage point, she shows the intricate details of intra and interspecies conflict and harmony: two young sheep tied together by a short rope, one pulling the other in an opposing direction; a foal nursing underneath its mother; dogs cornering a boar, teeth bared. Images depicting birth, death, and slaughter are par for the course, though always shown with an air of respect. In each breathtaking image, there is a full tableau vivant—an allegory or fable that brings the animals’ daily dramas to light.

Of the new edition, Sanguinetti told VF, “The images I added [to the book] had always been swirling in my head as missing. For example, the image of the man’s arms surrounding the red cow’s head at night. It could be a caring gesture or an oppressing one. Those two seemingly opposing gestures are constantly hand in hand in how we treat animals.” More than 25 years later, her love for the land, farmers, and creatures remains the same as it did when she was a child: “I still see [the animals] as individuals that deserve to live in peace and be treated with care.”

‘On the Sixth Day’ by Alessandra Sanguinetti

$54

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Selected prints from On the Sixth Day along with past series The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and Some Say Ice are on view at MACK + Webber 939 in Los Angeles until November 30. The new edition of On the Sixth Day is available for purchase online here.