Victoria Sambunaris

Victoria Sambunaris (b. 1964) is an American photographer known for her expansive, research-driven documentation of the evolving American landscape. For over 25 years, she has traveled alone across the country, capturing the intersections of nature, industry, and human intervention using a large-format 5×7 film camera. Her work explores themes of geography, politics, economics, and history, offering a unique visual study of how the land is shaped over time.

Sambunaris earned her MFA from Yale University in 1999 and has since structured her life around extended photographic journeys, living out of her car for months at a time. She has photographed sites such as the US-Mexico border, the Alaskan pipeline, large-scale mining operations, and transportation networks, always guided by deep research and a curiosity for overlooked landscapes.

Her work has been exhibited at major institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, for her commitment to documenting the shifting terrain of the United States.

Her book, Transformation of a Landscape, encapsulates the past decade of her work, blending photography with archival materials, maps, geological studies, and personal road logs. Sambunaris’ photography challenges traditional ideas of the American landscape, offering a perspective that is as much about history and human ambition as it is about place. (Website, Instagram)