Raquel Trejo is a Mexican artist and environmental scientist living and working in Australia. Her work explores the intersections of identity, motherhood, and ecology, with a focus on the relationship between scientific observation and emotional awareness. Working primarily with underwater photography and video, she utilises analog and digital cameras, often historic instruments originally designed for scientific use to reclaim tools of control as instruments of empathy.
Through participatory projects, she develops collaborative methodologies that invite communities to participate in the creation, preservation, and circulation of their own visual histories. Through a lens of femininity and ecology, Trejo’s practice treats beauty, attentiveness, and tenderness as vital ways to care for and protect our environment.
hola@raqueltrejo.com.au
RAQUEL TREJO
ART CV
EDUCATION
2022 Bachelor of Creative Arts (Screen), Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia (partially completed)
2022 Dip in Photography, Centre for Creative Photography, Adelaide, Australia (partially completed)
2007 Postgraduate Diploma in Translation Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2003 Master of Science in International Environmental Science, Lund University, Sweden
2000 Bachelor of Agricultural Engineering, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City
SELECTED AWARDS, GRANTS, AND HONOURS
2026 Second Place, Professional Analog / Film / Fine Art, International Photography Awards, USA
2026 Jury Favourite: Story, Wereldmuseum Photo Contest, Netherlands
2026 Silver Winner, Nature / Animal, Analog Sparks Awards
2026 Shortlisted, Open, Australian Photography Awards, Photo Collective, Australia
2026 Honourable Mention, Experimental Photography, FotoSlovo Awards
2026 Recipient, SAFC AIDC Conference Subsidy, South Australian Film Corporation, Australia
2025 Official Selection, Professional, International Photography Awards
2025 Finalist, LOOK! Prize, Museum of Australian Photography, Australia
2025 Nominee, One Shot Award, BBA Prizes, Berlin, Germany
2025 Honourable Mention, State of the World, PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, France
2025 Honourable Mention, Pollux Awards, FotoNostrum, Barcelona, Spain
2025 Highly Commended, Portrait, Australian Photographic Prize, Australia
2025 Highly Commended, Art & Conceptual, The Capture Awards, Australia
2025 Bronze Winner, Technique, Analog Sparks Awards
2025 Second Prize, Grounded Festival of Yorke Peninsula, Australia
2025 Honourable Mention, The Flow Photography Competition, USA
2023 Runner-up, AdMental Campaign, South Australia, Australia
2003 Lund University International Scholarship, Lund University, Sweden
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS
2028 Exhibition, Nexus Arts, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
2027 RainShots International Photo Exhibition, Fuji Photo Gallery Ginza, Tokyo, Japan — Curator’s Pick
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTIONS
2026 ProfiFoto × OFF Arles, Les Murs Blancs Gallery, Arles, France
2026 Triptychs, Ephemere Photo Fest, Three Space Tokyo, Japan Group exhibition and publication
2026 Postcards: Images and Whispers, Women’s Photo Festival, Athens, Greece
2026 Anarchy, Ephemere, Tokyo, Japan; Olbia, Italy; Versailles, France; Northampton, UK
2026 Postcards, Ostuni Foto Festival, Ostuni, Italy — Selected from Postcards: Images and Whispers
2026 FotoSlovo at Platforms Project, Athens, Greece — Digital projection
2025 LOOK! Prize Exhibition, Museum of Australian Photography, Melbourne, Australia
2025 Grounded Festival of Yorke Peninsula Exhibition, South Australia, Australia
2025 BBA One Shot Award Exhibition, Kühlhaus Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2025 Ephemere Photo Festival, Tokyo, Japan
2025 A Scientific Approach, LoosenArt, Rome, Italy
2025 Blue, Decode Gallery, Tucson, Arizona, USA
2025 To Slime Away, Outhouse Gallery, London, UK
2025 Narnimmaginaria, Narni, Italy — Selected projection
SELECTED ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
2026 Topographies of Self, Griffin Museum of Photography, Virtual Gallery, Massachusetts, USA
2026 People and Place, Artdoc Photography Magazine
2026 Inner Lens – Inner Worlds, Artdoc Photography Magazine
PRESENTATIONS, PORTFOLIO REVIEWS
2026 Speaker, Coral Kids, MontPhoto FEST, Lloret de Mar, Catalonia, Spain
2026 Selected Participant, Encontros da Imagem Portfolio Reviews, Braga, Portugal
CURRENT PROJECTS AND COMMUNITY PRACTICE
2025–present Coral Kids, Aitutaki, Cook Islands — Community visual archive and documentary project developed with GROW Aitutaki, including photography workshops, image-making, and publication development
Ongoing Not Broken — Personal underwater analogue photographic practice using a reclaimed Nikonos II camera and seawater-altered film
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2026 Coral Kids, ORI Magazine, Issue 07 — Feature and photographs
2026 “Visual Archives of Aitutaki: Coral Kids Photography Workshops,” Lomography Magazine — Interview and photographs by Coral Kids participants and Raquel Trejo
2026 WORLDS IN VIEW: ProfiFoto Arles 2026, Snap Collective, Denmark
2026 Coral Kids, in Through the Lens of… Home, Wereldmuseum, Netherlands — Photographs and accompanying story
2026 “The Australian Photography Awards 2026 – in pictures,” The Guardian — To the Moon
2026 Coral Kids, FotoDoc, Brazil — Selected photo essay
2026 A Book of Simple Pleasures, Vol. 1, South Australian Tourism Commission, Australia
2026 “Ocean’s Fingerprints: Raquel Trejo on Underwater Analogue Photography,” Lomography Magazine — Interview
2026 Anarchy, Vol. 3, Ephemere, Japan
2026 Memory Cult Magazine, Issue 2, USA
2026 Triptychs, Ephemere Photo Fest — Group publication, forthcoming
2023 Australian Geographic, October issue, Australia — Digital cover
SELECTED FILM AND TELEVISION CREDITS
2025–present Coral Kids, feature documentary — Director, producer, and cinematographer
2024–2025 EMEL, feature documentary unfinished — Director, producer, and cinematographer
2023 Secrets of the Octopus, National Geographic / Disney+ — Mentee associate producer, divemaster, and behind-the-scenes photographer
2023 Great White Odyssey, Discovery Channel — Underwater photographer, camera assistant, and divemaster
2023 Supershark Highway, Love Nature — Trainee shooter