Join us Saturday, February 22nd, between 4:00 and 6:00 PM to welcome celebrated photographer Diana Markosian for a book signing and what is sure to be an engaging discussion with Gabrielle J. Sirkin regarding Markosian's new Aperture monograph, Father.
Father is an intimate and engrossing diaristic portrayal of estrangement and reconnection, recounted through documentary photographs, family snapshots, text, and visual ephemera. It presents the photographer’s journey to another place and another time, where Markosian attempts to piece together an image of a familiar stranger - her long-lost father. The book explores her father’s absence, her reconciliation with him, and the shared emptiness of their prolonged estrangement. The images, made over the course of a decade, take place in her father’s home in Armenia.
In Markosian’s first monograph, Santa Barbara (Aperture, 2020), the photographer recreates the story of her family’s journey from post-Soviet Russia to the US in the 1990s. Father uses both documentary photographs and archives of objects, letters, and vernacular images to probe the fifteen years of absence and separation from the photographer’s childhood. In this voyage of self-discovery, Markosian touchingly renders her longing for connection to a man she barely remembers and who asks her, when she finds him, “Why did it take you so long?”
Diana Markosian is at the forefront of a new generation of photographers and directors, pushing the boundaries of documentary storytelling. By encapsulating different styles and mediums, Markosian has created a unique approach to image making. Her first monograph, Santa Barbara, was published by Aperture and selected as the top book of the year by MoMA and Time. Father, was chosen as the photo book of the year by Le Monde. Markosian holds a masters degree from Columbia University, is a contributor to Vanity Fair, Vogue and The New Yorker ,and has exhibited in leading museums worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Gabrielle Sirkin is a Los Angeles-based photography director and creative producer specializing in commercial and editorial photography driven to create compelling visual storytelling. She has over a decade of experience, and has worked at major publications such as More Magazine and Airbnb Magazine. Her work has earned her various awards and recognitions including Gold, Silver and Merit Society of Publication Designers (SPD) Award Winner, American Photography Winner, ADC Awards, Cannes Silver Lion Winner and an Emmy Nomination.
