Since 2013, Tarrah Krajnak has been producing photographic works that spiral around the particular circumstances of her birth. Born in Lima, Peru, in 1979, she was left at an orphanage and adopted as an infant by parents who come from the coal mining town of Lansford, Pennsylvania. The late 1970s in Peru were marked by social and political turmoil, as the country transitioned from a repressive military dictatorship to widespread bloodshed with the beginning of the Communist Party of Peru’s (also known as Sendero Luminoso, or the “Shining Path”) guerrilla war in 1980. In June 2019, Kavior Moon spoke with Krajnak about her recent works, which employ found photographs, the artist’s body, and analog photography to speak about a range of issues, from the use of archives to invent histories to the problematics of representing violence and trauma. The conversation took place in Krajnak’s studio in Claremont, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Pitzer College.