Diana Markosian - Father

Diana Markosian

Diana Markosian was born in post-Soviet Moscow, where she spent the early years of her childhood. At seven years old, her mother left the country and moved to California with Markosian and her older brother. They never said goodbye to their father. This move across the world would solidify, and seemingly finalize, a fracturing of her family that had already taken place. Once in California her mother sought to remove even the image of her father by cutting his picture out of their family photographs. His absence created a profound sense of mystery and confusion in Markosian as she looked for him, both literally and emotionally, in different men.

Fifteen years after she last saw him, Markosian returned to search for her father, whom she found living at their grandfather’s home in Armenia. It was as she remembered: the furniture and her grandfather��s paintings on the walls remained as they were when they left. For the next decade, Markosian travelled to Armenia frequently, often living with her father as she began to document their relationship. Each visit revealed complexities about an absent parent and how this absence had shaped the person Markosian had become.

Markosian’s work explores the complicated connection between family and migration, through centring memory and place. Above all, it has been a way for her to come to terms with her past and get closer to her father. The exhibition layout can be roughly divided into four segments, starting in the first room where the visitor learns about the artist’s father. Room two captures the search of Diana’s father for his two missing children. Room three and four bring the visitor back to the present and focus on the developing relationship between Diana and her father. In the final room, visitors are invited to share their own personal stories of estrangement or belonging, by leaving their written notes to the artist in a small former-Soviet mailbox on the wall.

Diana Markosian’s work is layered and interdisciplinary, including the use of found images, drawings, video, and personal keepsakes. This will be the first full-scale presentation of Father, which is based on her photobook of the same name.