Ligia Sato

Being born in one of the most populous cities in the world, São Paulo, shaped my interest in architecture and urban landscapes, particularly in how these environments influence our emotions and behaviors within constructed spaces. Moving to Buffalo, a sprawling and less populated city, expanded my practice to explore how car-centered, abandoned, or emptied spaces impact the human body. The body of work Wanderer Phenomenon delves into how my experience as a pedestrian is shaped by built urban structures, using phenomenology as its theoretical foundation. Through a series of photographs mounted as street signs, and short videos, I investigate my sense of safety and well-being in walkable, human-scaled spaces. In contrast, through a set of slow shutter speed photographs and documentations of performative actions, I express my feelings of unsafety and smallness in relation to vast, vacant, and car-centered environments.