The Persistence of Family

Diana Cheren Nygren

2020 - Ongoing

During the isolation resulting from the pandemic, family has taken on a new centrality. Our connections to our ancestors and our descendants often feel stronger than connections to those around us. I often wish my children knew my grandparents. These are portraits of my children as the product of a history of lives lived and intertwined, each effecting and shaping the other.

The images in this series are composites of my old family photographs, photographs I took of my children as they grew, and the New England landscapes in which my children and I grew up and became people. With these images, generations reach for each other across time. They are also, in many ways, self portraits. I exist in the tension of the space between those who came before me and those who will come after. Their longing makes real those things I hold dear. Ultimately, "The Persistence of Family" portrays the layered process of becoming, and the complex interweaving of time, place, and identity.

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  • Before the Waterfall

  • Going to the Fair

  • Babydolls

  • Come Out and Play

  • Namesake

  • The Two Boxers

  • Two Grandmothers

  • When I Went Down Beside the Sea

  • Playing with Fire

  • Vogue

  • Standoff

  • Ladiesman

  • Grown

  • Kiddie Pool

  • Betwixt


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