WIND AND OTHER DANGERS

"Since 2008, photography has been an essential tool to understand how distance and migration transformed my family. Following my parents’ divorce in the early 1990s, my mother and I left Moscow and immigrated to the United States. My childhood and teenage life unfurled in the interstices of separation and togetherness across Russian and English, palm trees and snow, bright tropical constructions and the cozy interiors of post-Soviet apartments. As a young adult, I began to use the camera to make sense of the growing distance between my Russian-Armenian father and grandparents in Moscow and St. Petersburg; my Russian-Jewish mother’s new life in Florida; and shifting Americanized versions of myself. Making pictures with my family became a vital way to examine our identities and see one another. These moments and the resulting images helped bridge a growing chasm conditioned by economic opportunity, geopolitical tensions, and personal growth."