Natalia's work focuses on photography, film and contemporary art, critical theory and aesthetics of both Spanish America and Brazil. She is the author of two books on photography. The first, Fotografia e Império. Paisagens para um Brasil Moderno (Cia das Letras, 2012) is a study of 19th Century photography in Brasil in its relationship to modern state formation, nationalism, modernization and race. The second, Depois da fotografia. Uma literatura fora de si (Rocco, 2014) is a study of contemporary literature in an expanded field, looking particularly at the relationship between current literary practices and photographic languages, techniques and materialities. With Jodi Roberts she has written two books, Photography at its Limits (OneEditionBooks, 2019) and The Matter of Photography in the Americas (Stanford University Press, 2018), as part of exhibition projects they co-curated. She has also curated NO SÉ (El templo del sol), a solo exhibition of Brazilian artist Nuno Ramos at the Parque de la Memoria in Buenos Aires in 2015, and is currently preparing an exhibition on the work of Waldemar Cordeiro with Rachel Price.
With Alejandra Uslenghi (Northwestern) she is the co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (2015) on photographers Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola. She has also edited Y todo el resto es literatura. Ensayos sobre Osvaldo Lamborghini, a book of essays on experimental writer Osvaldo Lamborghini (2008) and has guest edited a Special Issue of Film Quarterly on Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho (2016).
She is currently at work on two book length projects. The first looks at instances of contemporary photographic production which have moved beyond the medium and historical material conditions of photography. The second one is a study of time as critique in contemporary aesthetics.
With Leticia Sabsay (LSE) she is the co-editor of the book series Critical South (Polity Books).
