Years:
2023 - 2024

Ingredients:
Photographs

What if time did not exist in the way society tells us and we could trace events that influence the choices we make, add another layer of understanding to our lives, and access the past, and the future, to fully live in the now?”

It all began with a photograph featuring Mikhail Pavolotsky, a celebrated war hero of the Soviet Union, dated 1942. As I gazed upon his portrait within a war museum in Tiraspol, Transnistria, a flood of memories enveloped me, reconnecting me with our relationship and to my roots as an ethnic minority in Transnistria in a former past life.

"Past, Present, Future" embodies an improvisational photography journey, drawing from a collection of 600 photographs captured during years of artistic projects and exploration.

These images catalyze storytelling and dialogue, revealing a tapestry of synchronicities and patterns that brought my past into the present and my present into the future.

These 5x5 inch photographs are laid out on the floor and can be placed in any position desired. Encouraging visitors to shed their shoes and traverse the layers of narratives embedded within these images, I invite them to immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of places, people, and historical events that culminated in my encounter in Tiraspol. From territories with analogous tales to the likes of Nagorno Karabakh and Republic of Abkhazia to poignant moments like the Armenian Revolution of 2018 and the club raids and Family Purity Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, each encounter serves as a portal to the intricately connected realms of these rogue territories and the countries connected to them.

Together, we navigate through epochs marked by uprising, solidarity, oppression, and suppression. The theme of unrecognized identity reverberates not only within this project but also in my narrative, stemming from my mother's birth into the largest unrecognized tribe in America, the Lumbee Nation of North Carolina.