5Q2 - Roxana Rios

Your work explores both individual and collective identities. Why is photography such an important medium for you in this context?

Photography, is a fundamental means of engaging with identity for me because it doesn’t simply produce images, but creates spaces of relation. Identity isn’t a fixed construct; it emerges through interaction, through constant negotiation between self and other, between representation and perception. Photography doesn’t just reflect notions of identity, but plays an active role in shaping them.

Hereby also singular acts of self-presentation always extend beyond the individual. Every photographic gesture refers toward social codes, shared symbol systems, and cultural scripts. In
this sense I understand photography as a semiotic field: a space where signs can be read, interrogated, and made visible in their construction of meaning. It offers a visual vocabulary
through which identity can be read – as fluid, fragmented, contextual, and historically situated. Moreover, the history of photography has always been closely intertwined with the production
of identity categories which, for me as a photographer, also implies a responsibility. Photography provides not only an aesthetic but also a social and political dimension for
negotiating identity.

How do you explain your work to someone who knows nothing about photography?

I think in a way every audience engaging with my work brings their own understanding of photography, ways of seeing, interpreting, and relating to images. Since each perspective comes
with its own system of meaning, I usually offer contextual frameworks to anchor formal aspects and my photographic decisions.

Lately, my work has centered on the political structures that regulate the movement and relationality of bodies. These systems inscribe themselves onto corporealities, run along/
through them. That’s why I’m investigating the body-as-site. I’m not just interested in the body as a visible object but also in its social and political condition. How is embodiment
constructed, regulated, permitted, or excluded? From which standpoint do we observe, and how does that positionality shape our movement and perception? And fundamentally: how can
self-determination and equality be realized?

Performative situations play a key role in your work. How do these emerge? Are they spontaneous? Scripted? Something else entirely?

I believe that performative situations are constantly unfolding across a wide range of contexts. They are less something I deliberately create, but rather emerge through the relational work
between me and my collaborators.

In my practice, in which gender performance is a foundational element, the performative moment is usually already implicit in the space – as an attitude, a gesture, or a potential sign. Ideally, over time, these latent elements become visible, legible, and mutable. In two recent works, I also engage with explicit references to gendered postures – connecting with both contemporary and historical visual languages.

What role does editing play in your process—especially in relation to different presentation formats? What happens in that phase?

Editing is the moment when images begin to establish rhythm, set tone, and create dramaturgy. It is where meanings crystallize, and images assert their internal logic, articulating their own
set of claims.

Editing is just as essential to my practice as the act of taking the photographs themselves. Much like vocabulary and syntax in a text, the selection and sequencing of images create
structure. Collaboration with the people I portray is also crucial to me – I ensure they are involved throughout the entire process so that the work remains as equitable as possible.

Are you currently working on a new project? Any beans to spill?

Yes! I’m currently working on two new series: ALIAS and Breach of Realms – which will be shown on May 16 at the Photoszene Festival.

Altogether, I’ll present three works: a selection of fragmented drag looks; the beginnings of a contemporary continuation of Marianne Wex’s study of “female/male” body postures in public
space and 3D reliefs of AI-generated images failing at (representing) trans bodies. In parallel, I’m continuing production on my project echo, which I’m realizing this year thanks to the
grant for Contemporary German Photography.

Thank you very much Roxana Rios!

5Q2 (5 questions to) is a short interview format with photographers, artists and experts that accompanies FOTOTREFF editions and takeovers on the FOTOTREFF Berlin Instagram channel and on this website.

Find out more on the website of Roxana Rios.