Diana Markosian

Following the acclaimed exhibition Santa Barbara, internationally renowned artist Diana Markosian returns to Fotografiska Stockholm. Opening on October 23, Father is a deeply personal story of a father who disappeared from her life, fifteen years of absence, and the attempt to find their way back to each other. Through photography, Markosian explores family ties, loss, and reconciliation.

When Diana Markosian was seven years old, she left Moscow with her mother and older brother to start a new life in California. Her father was left behind. In an attempt to start anew, her mother removed his image out of family photographs. Meanwhile, her father spent years desperately searching for his missing children.

Fifteen years later, Markosian decided to find her father in Armenia. What followed was a journey spanning more than a decade, as she sought to get to know a father who had long been a stranger and rebuild the relationship they had never had the chance to develop.

– I spent ten years making these photographs, but it was never really about creating a body of work. It was about building a relationship with my father. The photographs became a way of documenting how that relationship developed, says Diana Markosian.

Diana Markosian is already familiar to Fotografiska's guests. In spring and summer 2023, her acclaimed exhibition Santa Barbara was presented in Stockholm, where she used photography and film to tell the story of her mother's decision to leave Russia and build a new life in the United States.

With Father, Markosian returns to the same family history, but from a different perspective. While Santa Barbara told her mother's story, she now turns her camera toward the father who was left behind.

– When Diana Markosian presented Santa Barbara at Fotografiska, we were introduced to her mother's story. Now, we get to follow her journey to understand her father. It's almost like two chapters of the same story, told from entirely different perspectives. We're delighted to welcome her back with an exhibition that demonstrates how photography can help us better understand both ourselves and one another, says Mohamed Mire, Exhibition Producer at Fotografiska Stockholm.

In Father, Markosian documents how her relationship with her father slowly develops, while also revealing the challenges of bridging years of absence and lost time. The exhibition raises universal questions about family, identity, belonging, and forgiveness.

By making room for different perspectives, Markosian challenges the idea that family histories have simple answers or clear villains. Instead, photography becomes a way of approaching what is often difficult to put into words.

As an interactive element of the exhibition, visitors are invited to write a letter to someone they miss in their lives. This may be included in an upcoming exhibition by Diana Markosian.

About Diana Markosian

Diana Markosian is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been exhibited at institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Her first monograph, Santa Barbara, was named Book of the Year by MoMA and Time Magazine. Her latest monograph, Father, was selected as Photo Book of the Year by Le Monde Magazine.

Credits

Father is co-curated by Mohamed Mire, Exhibition Producer for Fotografiska Stockholm, in collaboration with the artist. The exhibition is co-produced by Les Rencontres d'Arles and Foam, Amsterdam.