Art, Migration, and Belonging: Interview with Sandra Bacchi

Sandra Bacchi trained in photography and audiovisual in São Paulo.

“I grew up in an environment very connected to film and the arts,” she says. That always gave me the freedom to create and express myself from a very early age. She studied photography and worked in video, film, documentaries, and advertising, building a solid visual foundation that would shape her entire body of work.

When she moved to the United States, her artistic practice also changed.

“My work transformed along with me,” she explains. Although she put audiovisual work on the back burner, she returned to photography as a space for personal exploration. From that process emerged a photographic series created with her daughters over the course of six years. “It was a very intimate project that, over time, took on a life of its own,” she recalls. The project was presented in exhibitions in the United States, Brazil, and Europe, became a photo book, and culminated in a solo exhibition at the Concept Art Gallery in Pittsburgh in 2020.

Sandra Bacchi. Foto/Photo: Kitoko Chargois

In 2017, Sandra moved to Pittsburgh and, two years later, during an artist residency at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, she discovered a new language: glass. “There I found a community that profoundly transformed my experience as an immigrant,” she says. “Glass allowed me to create layers and volume for images that speak of memory, migration, identity, and belonging.” Since then, this medium has become an essential part of her work.

For Sandra, being an immigrant artist means inhabiting multiple realities at the same time.

“It’s having the privilege of living between worlds,” she says. I carry references, affections, and memories from different cultures that blend within me, but it’s also a constant exercise in listening, adaptation, and resilience.

Recently, she was selected as a finalist to exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in 2026. For her, this recognition goes beyond the professional. “Being in that space, as a Brazilian artist and an immigrant, has a very special meaning,” she shares. It is to affirm the importance of diversity and different perspectives in the construction of art and a country’s identity.

When I asked her to complete the sentence “Being Brazilian in Pittsburgh is…”, her answer was as clear as it was poetic:

“It’s learning to put down roots without erasing your own history.”

And, as you might expect, the conversation ended with the flavors that connect her to Brazil. “There are so many,” she says, laughing. “Cheese bread, guava paste with cheese, coconut water… flavors that take me straight back to my childhood.” He also celebrates that in Pittsburgh, the Brazilian community can ease their saudade through food.

“The luck we have is being able to reconnect with our land through affection and flavor,” she says, mentioning Mercearia Brasil—a spontaneous mention that brought a smile to my face and, I promise, wasn’t solicited!

Sandra Bacchi’s work reminds us that art is memory and that, even far from one’s place of origin, it is possible to create new roots without losing one’s essence.