Huffington Post
July 21 2014
To Rebuild A Father-Daughter Relationship, One Photographer Created A
New Family Album
The Huffington Post | By Katherine Brooks
Photographer Diana Markosian’s parents separated when she was seven
years old, her mother leaving her father in Moscow to begin anew in
California. From that point on, Markosian and her brother scarcely
heard from their father. With no pictures for posterity and no formal
goodbye to remember, they even forgot what he looked like.
“Growing up, my father felt like a secret that was being kept from
me,” the artist wrote for Lens Culture. “My mother shared with me a
handful of stories that made me want to know him, touch him, invent
him.”
Fifteen years later, Markosian decided to reconnect with her phantom
parent, traveling to his home in Armenia — where her family once
resided — to piece together a relationship with a man she hardly
knew. The reunion was bittersweet. “For so long I was determined to
have a father, so I had invented one out of a man I thought existed,”
Markosian reiteratd to Lightbox. “But the man standing across from me
didn’t recognize me. I didn’t recognize him, either.”
To cope with the awkward sensation of meeting a figure who, for so
long, has existed only in imagination, Markosian began the aptly named
“Inventing My Father,” a photographic exploration of her past, present
and future living and getting to know her dad. The work has taken
place over the past two years, during which Markosian moved in with
father, in “the same gray, decaying Soviet building” she once lived in
as a young girl.
The series’ images mine time, presenting old snapshots of her
seven-year-old self and material relics of her once-whole family, as
well as contemporary portraits of long lost relatives. There are
photos of old swing sets, folded hands, suitcases full of letters and
ominous mirrored reflections. In one frame, her father has added text
to a simple photo of Markosian mid-snow angel: “I am searching for the
little girl in her, the little girl I used to know. The one I was
close to. In myself, I am looking for the remains of those feeling I
once had for her.” In another, a man — her father — has been clearly
removed, cut out of a family photo by Markosian’s mother, leaving a
ghostly scene behind.
Disparate and intensely emotional, the various photos present not one
person or one family, but a fraught relationship fractured by distance
and unavailability. Like a child’s collage or the visual spiderweb of
an elaborate investigation, “Inventing My Father” doesn’t make up for
lost time, but attempts to connect one lost era to another.
“I didn’t want to be defined by something in my past,” Markosian
explained to The Huffington Post. “I wanted to meet my father and get
to know him for who he was rather than the man my mom made him out to
be. This piece has helped fill in gaps, confirm impressions, and offer
proof where none existed before.”
For more many, many more photos in the series, head to Markosian’s
website here:
Diana Markosian is an alumna of Columbia University’s Graduate School
of Journalism. She has reported from Russia’s North Caucasus region as
well as Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and her images have appeared in
The New York Times, Foreign Policy and more. Her work is set to go on
view at Portland, Oregon’s Blue Sky gallery in January of 2015.