"Arauzal Indicators" Alex Arauz photographs the domestic

Between Brooklyn and London, photographer and curator Alex Arauz builds a quietly
powerful body of work that explores how identity is formed in domestic space. Through
exhibitions, curatorial projects and film initiatives, he asks how the places we live – and the
images we make within them – shape who we are.

The quiet politics of domestic life

Alex Arauz’s photography unfolds in intimate spaces – the lived-in rooms and private
corners that carry the traces of who we are. Working between Brooklyn and London, Arauz
uses photography and moving image to ask how identity takes shape within the domestic,
and how memory lingers in the ordinary. His work slips between editorial and art practice,
between images made for magazines and those made for quiet reflection. The result is a
body of work that feels grounded, familiar and deeply human. “The home,” his images
seem to say, “is where identity is rehearsed, performed and remembered.”

“Arauz’s photographs don’t seek spectacle; they hold a kind of stillness,
inviting the viewer to slow down and notice the ordinary.”
Waste Store, 2023 – Looking at the city from inside
In early 2023, Arauz exhibited as part of I Wonder How Many People in This City, a group
show at Waste Store curated by Isabel Kang. The title alone captures a tension that runs
through Arauz’s work – how we live together, yet remain apart, in the fabric of a city. His
contribution to the show didn’t depict the city directly. Instead, it turned inward. The rooms,
objects and light that fill his frames speak of urban experience at its most personal: the
half-open doorway, the rumpled bed, the soft flare of sunlight through a curtain. These are
not portraits of the metropolis, but of what the city feels like from within.
Emalin, 2024 – Screens, memory and everyday rituals
A year later, Arauz’s practice took another turn inward with his contribution to One for
Sorrow, Two for Joy at Emalin (July–August 2024), curated by Lauren Auder and Tosia
Leniarska. The exhibition transformed the gallery into a living room – a sofa, a television,
two speakers – a gesture that blurred the boundary between public exhibition and private
viewing. Arauz presented OOBE – Out Of Body Experience, a video piece that extends his
fascination with interiority and the act of looking. The title nods to that strange state of
observing oneself from outside, as though memory has slipped into the present.

Curating the scene – Ginny on Frederick and beyond
Arauz’s curiosity about images extends beyond his own photography. He has also played
an active curatorial role in London’s independent art landscape, helping to guide the
programme at Ginny on Frederick, a small but influential gallery celebrated for its
experimental approach and commitment to emerging voices. By contributing to the
gallery’s curatorial direction, Arauz helped foster a platform that embraces experimentation
and risk – the same qualities that shape his own work.
Waiting Room Film Festival – nurturing new voices
Arauz is also a founding member of the Waiting Room Film Festival, a grassroots platform
for experimental and artist-led moving image. The festival has become known for
championing early work from artists who later shape new directions in contemporary film
and video art. Among those shown is Josiane M.H. Pozi, whose early films found a home
at the festival. Pozi has since gained wide attention for her diaristic approach to
image-making – weaving together fragments of daily life, digital memory and the
representation of Black identity. Her rise reflects the kind of raw, authentic talent that
Waiting Room was designed to support.
Arauz’s curatorial and photographic work share the same ethos: an
attention to the overlooked, and a belief that quiet observation can be a
radical act.

What ties Arauz’s activities together – as artist, curator and organiser – is an
understanding of the everyday as a space of meaning. In his editorial work, he brings
sensitivity and texture to fashion portraiture; in his gallery projects, he turns that same
sensibility toward introspection. He approaches the home as an emotional landscape
rather than a static setting. His rooms are charged with feeling, and his subjects – whether
people or places – exist somewhere between presence and absence.
The art of attention

Across exhibitions, festivals and curatorial projects, Arauz offers an antidote to the noise of
contemporary visual culture. His practice encourages slowness and care, inviting the
viewer to linger on a patch of light, a familiar room, or a fleeting expression. In an age of
speed and saturation, Arauz’s work insists on attention – on the idea that seeing carefully,
whether through a lens or across a community, is itself a form of art.