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. I explore the past through archival photographs and objects left behind in her late relatives’ abandoned home, and the present through domestic portraits of my remaining family. These photographs reconstruct a narrative of family, culture, and lineage from my first-generation perspective. Infrequent visits to Bulgaria left me with fragmented memories and a sense of belonging always in flux. 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.
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