Allegra Pacheco (1986, Costa Rica) is a visual artist, photographer, film director and a dedicated traveler. Her exhibitions span from Japan to Europe and America. Allegra works in a variety of mediums, with her work predominantly painting and photography, but often expanding into ceramics, sculpture and installation, and most recently documentary film.
Pacheco’s work has been shown internationally both in Museum and solo settings, most receptly a solo exhibition in the Museo de Arte y Diseno Contemporaneo in Costa Rica.
Since 2016 Pacheco almost exclusively dedicated herself to directing her first feature documentary, completed in 2021, titled “Salaryman.” Set in the world of Japanese blue-collar businessmen, this film explores the lives of office workers and simultaneously tracks the artist’s personal self-discovery along the way. Humming with the kinetic energy of Tokyo and featuring a rich, multi-dimensional score by James Iha (co-founder of the Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle), Salaryman combines performance art and a punk documentary ethic to open our minds to the cost of overwork, ultimately revealing surprising ways how salarymen, in every culture, can find escape and healing. The documentary has been presented in several film festivals through 2021 and 2022, in which it had won the recognitions of best documentary, best director, best score, among others.
Before and parallel to her dedication to the documentary, from 2008 to 2018, she presented solo shows in MoMo Gallery and Just Another Space in Tokyo, in LAMB Arts and London New Castle in London, as in Despacio, Klaus Steinmetz Contemporary and Vienti4/siete Gallery in Costa Rica. In 2012, Pacheco exhibited her first major installation work, 'Boobs', a series of breast-shaped soft sculptures made in collaboration with disenfranchised women from La Carpio, an immigrant neighborhood in Costa Rica. The exhibition space took on the innocence of a children's playground, but at the same time served as a platform whereby feminist issues and taboo subjects such as sexuality could be addressed in an un-biased environment.
Allegra has been artist-in-residency in LAMB Arts artist-in-residence program, London, U.K. in 2015, and at The Backers Foundation and AIT Residence Program, Tokyo, in 2013.
In 2014, Allegra’s first photography book, titled “88 Days in Japan” was published by Editorial Germinal, making a debut in the Salon du Livre, Paris.
Pacheco’s work is included in important collections, such as; Mori collection (Mori Art Museum owners’private collection, Tokyo), Fundacion Massaveu (Madrid), Francisco Cantos (Chair in ARCO, Madrid), and Takeo Obayashi (Tokyo).
Awards
-2021 Best director at Cambridge Film Festival
-2021 Exceptional merit at WRPN Women’s International FF
-2021 Best documentary at Austin Arthouse Film Festival
-2021 Best international documentary at Evolution! Mallorca International Film Festival
-2021 Best documentary at Best score at DOCLA Film Festival
-2012 2nd Place at Valoarte X
Film Festivals
2022 Camera Japan, Rotterdam, NETHERLANDS
2022 Japannual, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2022 Workers Unite Film Festival, New York, U.S.
2022 XIV Centralamerican Cinematography Cycle, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2022 CRFIC Costa Rica Film Festival, San José, COSTA RICA
2022 Nippon Connection Film Festival, Frankfurt, GERMANY
2022 Toronto Women Film Festival, Toronto, CANADÁ
2021 Sidney Women’s International Film Festival, Sidney, AUSTRALIA
2022 DIFF Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival, Dublin, IRELAND
2021 LA Independent Women Film Awards, Los Ángeles, U.S
2021 ARFF Berlin International Awards, Berlin, GERMANY
2021 Harlem International Film Festival, New York, U.S.
2021 Philadelphia Latino Film Festival, Philadelphia, U.S.
2021 Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, London, ENGLAND
2021 Lift-Off Global Network Tokyo, Tokyo, JAPAN
2021 Cambridge Film Festival, Cambridge, ENGLAND
2021 WRPN Women’s International Film Festival, Toronto, CANADÁ
2021 Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Austin, U.S.
2021 Evolution! Mallorca International Film Festival, Mallorca, SPAIN
2021 DOCLA Film Festival, Los Ángeles, U.S.
Solo Exhibitions
2023 “Dear Salaryman;”, MADC Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San José, COSTA RICA
2023 “Dear Salaryman;” Momo Gallery Ryogoku, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2023 “Salaryman”, TOP MUSEUM-Tokyo Photographic Museum, screening and artist talk, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2023 “Salaryman”, Private viewing at Yu-Un Guesthouse, Takeo Obayashi Museum, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2023 “Salaryman”, Geidai Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2022 "Imaginary American Landscapes", Album Sn. Clemente, California, U.S.
2018 “DIY”, Vienti4/siete Gallery, San José, COSTA RICA
2015 “Bedrock”, LAMB Arts, London, U.K.
2015 “Micro Macro”, London New Castle Exhibition Space, London, U.K.
2013 “Boobs in Japan”, MoMo Gallery, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2012 “Boobs”, Despacio, San José, COSTA RICA.
2011 “Tokyoscapes”, Just Another Space, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2008 “Autorretratos”, Klaus Steinmetz Contemporary, San José, COSTA RICA.
Group shows
2024 “Seguimos,” Craig Krull Gallery, LA, CA, U.S.
2023 “Imaginary Landscapes”, Compound, Yucca Valley, U.S.
2023 “Pi Art Festival”, Museum of Punta Islita, Guanacaste, COSTA RICA
2022 "Queremos Pintar", Museo Regional de San Ramón, Alajuela, COSTA RICA
2022 "NY Latinamerican Art Triennial", Pace University Art Gallery, New York, U.S.
2018 “Tokyo A La Carte: The Backers Foundation and AIT Residence Programme, Memories of 10 years”,Tomio Koyama Gallery and ShugoArts Gallery, Tokio, JAPAN
2016 Fredric Snizer Gallery, Miami, U.S.
2016 JUSTMAD7 Art Fair, Klaus Steinmetz Contemporary, Madrid, SPAIN
2015 ARTMAD Art Fair, Materna y Herencia Gallery, Madrid, SPAIN
2015 JUSTMAD6 Art Fair, Materna y Herencia Gallery, Madrid, SPAIN
2015 SUMMA Contemporary Art Fair, Materna y Herencia Gallery, Matadero, Madrid, SPAIN
2015 Estampa Art Fair, Materna y Herencia Gallery, Matadero, Madrid, SPAN
2014 “Wimbledon College of Art Degree Show”, Wimbledon College of Art, London, U.K.
2013 “Divided against ourselves”, Yamamoto Gendai Gallery, Tokio, JAPAN
2013 “Relative and Objective”, Takeo Obayashi Collection Viewing, Tokyo, JAPAN.
2013 “Threads”, The Rag Factory, London, U.K.
2012 “ESFOTO”, Centro Cultural de España - La Casa Tomada, San Salvador, EL SALVADOR
2012 Valoarte X, San José, COSTA RICA.
2012 “30 Años Jacob Karpio”, Galería Andrómeda, San José, COSTA RICA
2011 Eigenes/Fremdes Leipzig, GERMANY
2011 Valoarte IX, San José, COSTA RICA.
2010 New York Photo Festival, Dumbo Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
2010 SCOPE Art Fair, White Box Gallery, Miami, U.S.
2010 “Another Art Show”, Submerged Art Gallery, New Jersey, U.S.
2010 “Mentors”, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, U.S.
2009 Fountain Art Fair, Miami, U.S.
2009 Valoarte V, Galería Nacional, San José, COSTA RICA
2008 Yes Gallery, Brooklyn, U.S.
2008 ARTBO, Bogotá, COLOMBIA
2008 Valoarte IV, Galería Nacional, San José, COSTA RICA.
Artist Residencies
2018 Paradise Air, Tokyo, Japan
2015 LAMB Arts artist-in-residence program, London, U.K.
2013 The Backers Foundation and AIT Residence Programme, Tokyo, JAPAN
Highlighted collections
Beryl Lacoste *Private Collection, USA
Fundacion Massaveu, Madrid, SPAIN
Francisco Cantos *Private Collection, Madrid, SPAIN
Mrs. Mori (Mori Musem) *Private collection, Tokyo, JAPAN
Takeo Obayashi *Private Collection, Tokyo, JAPAN
Presence in Artbooks
*In Production Salaryman Book, Vienna, AUSTRIA.
*In Production Abya Yala, NY Latinamerican Art Triennial, New York, U.S.
2023 Dear Salaryman Newspaper, Tokio, JAPAN.
2014 88 Days in Japan, Editorial Germinal, Tokio, JAPAN.
Academic studies
2014 Masters in Fine Arts, Wimbledon College of Art, University of Arts of London, UNITED KINGDOM
2012 BFA Photography, School of Visual Arts, New York, U.S.