Reflections on mortality: Alessandra Sanguinetti on her ​eerie images of the midwest

From Some Say Ice by Alessandra Sanguinetti. All images courtesy of the artist and Mack. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and MACK

The first time Alessandra Sanguinetti visited Black River Falls to take photographs, it felt, she says, “like a weird type of time travel”.

The destination she had in mind was the end of the 19th century, when a photographer named Charles Van Schaick was documenting life and death in the small Wisconsin town. Sanguinetti first encountered Van Schaick’s images aged nine, at home in Buenos Aires, leafing though a 1973 book called Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy. “It made a huge impression on me,” she says. “It made me ask for a camera and start taking pictures.”