Diana Markosian’s “Father“, presented by Aperture, has settled within me like a quiet ache, a profound meditation on the fractured landscape of family, the enduring weight of loss, and the fragile, often stumbling journey towards reconnection. I spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon with it, the spring sunshine warming my back as my wife scrolled through her phone beside me, the boys’ contented chatter drifting from their tea in the garden. It felt like a stolen moment of domesticity, a world away from the raw emotional terrain this book excavates. Later, when the house had settled into a hushed evening stillness, I returned to it, allowing the images to truly sink in. To call “Father” a photobook feels almost reductive; it unfolds more like a deeply personal, visual novella.

The narrative thread, woven with Markosian’s own diaristic writing, pulls you in from the outset. We are given the stark context of a childhood abruptly uprooted, a mother’s decisive act of severing ties, quite literally cutting the father’s image from the family photographs, as if to erase his very existence from their shared history. For a child, this act of obliteration must have been seismic, a silent decree that a significant part of their identity was simply gone.

Fifteen years pass, a chasm of unspoken absence. Then, a revelation: the father, this phantom figure, has been diligently preserving fragments of a connection that was seemingly severed. Hundreds of letters, missives filled with a yearning for his lost children, alongside newspaper clippings detailing the desperate searches, letters penned to embassies, even to the American president, a testament to a persistent, if ultimately unsuccessful, quest.

As Markosian embarks on her own journey to find this elusive man, the reader becomes a fellow traveller, privy to the tentative steps towards building a relationship with a stranger who is, by blood, her father. The narrative takes unexpected turns. The discovery of a young half-sister introduces another layer of complexity, a new branch on a family tree stunted by distance and circumstance. Yet, even in this long-awaited meeting, the father remains a fleeting presence, often absent, leaving Markosian in the care of her grandfather. The grandfather emerges as a steadfast figure, seemingly involved in the earlier search for the children, a quiet anchor in the swirling currents of familial disconnection. But the father’s tendency to disappear, to remain just out of reach, casts a poignant shadow over the burgeoning hope of reconciliation.

The book culminates in a simple, yet devastatingly resonant quote: “I keep searching for him. I think I always will.” It leaves you with a profound sense of lingering melancholy.

Adding another layer of intimacy, each book contains an empty envelope, an invitation for the reader to pen a letter to someone they are missing, to share their own story of absence and longing. This act of inclusion, with the promise of these letters finding their way into a future exhibition, underscores the universality of Markosian’s experience, transforming the personal into a collective expression of human connection and loss.

I find myself unexpectedly moved by this work. Perhaps, as a father of three, I struggle to comprehend the circumstances that could lead to such a prolonged absence, the inability to be a constant presence in my children’s lives. Or perhaps it resonates with the faint echo of my own fractured familial landscape, a father unseen for over a decade, a grandfather who remains a stranger to his own grandchildren. Whatever the reason, “Father” has burrowed its way under my skin, leaving me with a desire for more understanding, for the unspoken questions to be answered: Why did the mother leave? Is there still a connection between the parents? What is the relationship like with the half-sister, this other life that existed unbeknownst to the first?

Certain images within the book have stayed with me, lingering in my mind like half-forgotten dreams. The photograph of the grandfather and father in a living room is particularly striking. The rug hanging on the wall, the worn sofa, the father standing in the doorway, head bowed over his phone, glasses perched on his nose – a contemporary echo of his past preoccupation with searching, perhaps still sending out digital tendrils into the void. The grandfather, seated, his top shirt discarded to reveal a white vest, gazes intently through binoculars, a visual metaphor for a search that spanned continents and years. The composition speaks volumes about the enduring, yet often futile, nature of their quest.

Then there is the seemingly ordinary snapshot of the mother, father, and the two young children, posed for a family portrait like countless others. As someone whose own childhood was marked by parental divorce, this image carries a particular weight. It’s a stark reminder that behind the facade of a happy family photograph can lie unseen currents of unhappiness, the complex inner lives of parents often invisible to their children, who naively accept their world as the immutable truth.

The image of the father shaving in the mirror, the electric razor a buzzing counterpoint to his deeply thoughtful, almost poignant expression, is equally compelling. What thoughts occupied his mind in those solitary moments? Before the arrival of his youngest daughter, had he resigned himself to never seeing his eldest again? Did he ever dare to imagine the day when that lost connection might, however tentatively, be re-established? The photograph is a silent testament to the internal landscape of a man grappling with absence, hope, and the passage of time.

“Father” is more than just a collection of photographs; it is a visceral journey through the complexities of family, the enduring impact of loss, and the arduous, often bittersweet, path towards understanding and connection. Diana Markosian has crafted a powerful and deeply human story, one that resonates long after the final page is turned, leaving the reader not with neat resolutions, but with a profound sense of shared vulnerability and the enduring human need to find those who are lost to us. It is a book that stays with you, prompting reflection on your own familial landscape, the absences that have shaped you, and the enduring power of the search, even when the destination remains uncertain.

Regards

Alex