{"id":4007,"date":"2018-08-31T13:30:12","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T13:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/?p=4007"},"modified":"2018-09-13T12:27:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T12:27:16","slug":"diana-markosian-on-exploring-the-relationship-between-memory-and-place-through-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/diana-markosian-on-exploring-the-relationship-between-memory-and-place-through-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Markosian on exploring the relationship between memory and place through photography"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Diana Markosian is an Armenian &#8211; American documentary photographer and a globe-trotter. Through her work she explores the relationship between memory and place, concepts that speak a lot about her own experiences.<\/p>\n<p>She was born in the former Soviet Union, in a family in which the father was absent most of the time. One morning in 1996, when she was 7 years old, her mother told her to pack her belongings because they were going on a trip. The next day they were in California. But Diana never had the chance to say goodbye to her father.<\/p>\n<p>During her graduate school in California, she enrolled in a broadcast journalism course. When a female photographer came to her class as a guest lecturer, Diana remembers that she felt in awe with her passion and energy about photojournalism. \u201eIt wasn&#8217;t about her; it was about the people she photographed. There was beauty and meaning behind her work\u201d, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qufoto.com\/interviews\/diana-markosian\">Diana remembers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The same photographer, Melanie Burford, later became her photojournalism professor at Columbia University, where Diana pursued a master\u2019s degree, and she has been her mentor ever since.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Di\u00e0na Markosian is one of five photographers selected for the Zeitgeist award at The Photography Annual 2017. Her work explores the psychological aspects of loss, trauma and memory <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rJosxmZ1Uc\">https:\/\/t.co\/rJosxmZ1Uc<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sjaRObG2Pe\">pic.twitter.com\/sjaRObG2Pe<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Creative Review (@CreativeReview) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CreativeReview\/status\/943065919127019521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 19, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Diana started her career as a freelance photographer in Russia, where she started documenting the world of heroin addicts, and in Chechnya, a region that witnessed nearly two decades of war. She was 20 and had just finished graduate school. She felt like she needed to prove to herself that she could be a photographer. \u201eI think that initial pressure is something we all go through, in any industry, when we are starting out. I lived and worked on assignments, trying to make a name for myself. And slowly, I started to find my voice\u201d, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lensculture.com\/articles\/blink-network-looking-inward-insights-into-personal-storytelling\">says Diana<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Her work speaks about people who face complicated situations of life, from war to migration. She photographed girls coming of age in the context of post-war Chechnya, a couple from a small village near the place of the Chernobyl disaster, the 10<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the separatist siege of the school in Beslan. In 2014, Markosian rented an apartment for a month in Beslan and started visiting the school every day. She met the survivors, before attending the memorial and she spent time with a handful of students, now her age.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Congratulations to Diana Markosian, who has been awarded a 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MagnumFND?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MagnumFND<\/a> Fund grant for her project &#39;Santa Barbara&#39;! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YcgkBdBUU2\">https:\/\/t.co\/YcgkBdBUU2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Diana Markosian\/Magnum Photos <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/62oyF3FT93\">pic.twitter.com\/62oyF3FT93<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Magnum Photos (@MagnumPhotos) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MagnumPhotos\/status\/1002988350184280066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 2, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Diana <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lensculture.com\/articles\/blink-network-looking-inward-insights-into-personal-storytelling\">says<\/a> that her commitment and passion for this profession doesn&#8217;t come from simply creating images. It comes from building relationships. \u201eYou have to be a person before you are a photographer\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In the last years she photographed refugee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/ng-interactive\/2018\/apr\/21\/great-lengths\">children learning to swim in Germany<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.magnumphotos.com\/newsroom\/diana-markosian-1915\/\">survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide<\/a>. Her most intimate project is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dianamarkosian.com\/inventing-my-father\"><em>Inventing my father<\/em><\/a>, in which she documented through photography her encounter with her father, in Armenia, after more than 10 years of absence. <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/79876546\">Diana says<\/a> this project is not really a project. \u201cIt\u2019s not finished yet, it will never be, not in 10 years, it\u2019s my life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am still exploring and finding my voice in photography. I can\u2019t say a certain type of story excites me over another. I think I am a curious person, and I like to learn. This motivates me to keep exploring and producing new work. I want my work to have depth and hopefully speak to people\u201d. Her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qufoto.com\/interviews\/diana-markosian\">advice<\/a> for young photojournalists who are considering a freelance career is to stay humble and fight for what they want to do. \u201cIt has to be passionate &#8211; whether an assignment or personal project &#8211; our profession is a gift. Don&#8217;t abuse it\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Diana\u2019s images can be found in publications like National Geographic Magazine, The New Yorker and The New York Times. In 2016, she became a Magnum nominee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Diana Markosian is speaking at the 8th edition of The Power of Storytelling.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/registration\/\">Register here<\/a>\u00a0to meet her and the other amazing speakers who will tackle this year\u2019s theme:<\/em>\u00a0Rewrite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diana Markosian is an Armenian &#8211; American documentary photographer and a globe-trotter. Through her work she explores the relationship between memory and place, concepts that speak a lot about her own experiences. She was born in the former Soviet Union, in a family in which the father was absent most of the time. One morning &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/diana-markosian-on-exploring-the-relationship-between-memory-and-place-through-photography\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Diana Markosian on exploring the relationship between memory and place through photography<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[60,147,154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4007"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4109,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions\/4109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}