Mariana Lafrance is an interdisciplinary artist working in Sudbury and on Manitoulin Island. While her earlier photographic work revealed a fascination with urban space and social phenomena, more recently her work has been about slowing down and tuning in to natural materials and moments.
Mariana started learning photography in her early teens. She first exhibited her work in 2006 in Sudbury, following the launch of the popular photoblog La petite fumée... and the little smoke. She received a Northern Arts grant from the Ontario Arts Council in 2008 for her exhibition at the artist-run centre Galerie du nouvel-Ontario in Sudbury. The same year she published a first book of photos with Les Éditions Prise de Parole, entitled Site Unseen/La ville invisible, grouping together her photographs of Sudbury. In 2011, she was awarded an emerging artist grant from the Ontario Arts Council, with which she developed a work exploring the challenges of anxiety in social settings.
