Born in Oran, French Algeria, and of Pieds-Noir descent, Sarfati spent her childhood in Nice, France, which she credits as having inspired her sensitivity about colour in her work.
Her images of urban ruins and young people in their interior spaces resulted in her first major body of work, Acta Est (2000) published by Phaidon.
The series’ poetic approach set itself apart from the categories of travelogue and photo-journalistic essay, conjuring a richly layered world at the edge of reality and fiction[3] In 2003, she travelled across the United States photographing adolescents in cities such as Austin (TX) Asheville (NC), Portland (OR), New Orleans (LO), Berkeley, Oakland and Los Angeles (CA).
With Oh Man (2017), a series of richly detailed tableaux depicting lonesome men walking in downtown Los Angeles, Sarfati departed from her accustomed 35mm format, opting for a 4x5 view camera.
[6] Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said, “Sarfati's photographs, though deceptively simple on first viewing, have a mysterious quality that is to do, in part, with her deft merging of portraiture, snapshot and arranged tableau”.