Leonora Vicuña's work is rooted in the sensitive observation of the working-class neighborhoods of Santiago, Chile, which she explores during her wanderings through the city in the early 1980s. With an anthropological gaze, she portrays public spaces such as small shops, bars, markets, and plazas. These photographs capture mundane moments, as if frozen in time, and celebrate the lively coexistence or public intimacy that reigns in the marginalized areas of Santiago, where poets, vagabonds, waiters, beggars, ragpickers, transvestites, musicians, and other destitute figures gather.

After creating these black-and-white images, Leonora colors them with pencils to restore the original hues and atmosphere of the scene. Her photographs are also imbued with an aesthetic that grants them a timeless quality.