What Once Was
Fragments of What Once Was
Love 19
Yellow Haze
Marsh
Objects//Identity
Selected Commissions
About
What Once Was pieces together fragments of my Bulgarian-American identity through themes of loss, displacement, and belonging. Through archival photographs and objects left behind in my late relatives’ abandoned home, I explore the past, and the document the present through domestic portraits of my remaining family and their homes. Like many first-generation Americans, my identity was forged by a combination of loss and luck—a yearning for a cultural bond just out of reach. Infrequent visits to Bulgaria left me with fragmented memories and a sense of belonging always in flux. These photographs reconstruct a narrative of family, culture, and lineage from my first-generation perspective.
© Gabi Dinkova All Rights Reserved