ME, and my father

“Me, and My Father” is a photographic work about farewell and the slow process of letting go of my father. It tells the story of an ambivalent father-daughter relationship shaped by alcohol addiction, fear, and years of emotional distance. In the face of the end, a wordless closeness emerges—one that is as painful as it is beautiful.

Due to my father’s alcoholism, I was confronted with the subject of death at a very early age. The fear of losing him accompanied me constantly from that point on. His addiction and his strong imprint from the Soviet Union shaped my childhood and our relationship for many years. To protect myself, I withdrew both emotionally and physically.

After returning from Berlin, I began— with my father’s consent— to work through our family history photographically. I deliberately chose to photograph in my parents’ house—the place where I grew up—in order to make visible the familial and cultural traces embedded in this living space. A few months after beginning this work, my mother died very suddenly. She had been the connecting element in our family. During this time, I also fell ill and spent a long period in the hospital. I visited my father only rarely.

In the summer, in June 2024, I received a call from my father from the hospital. Doctors had discovered a malignant tumor. Diagnosis: pancreatic cancer—incurable. From that moment on, the camera became a means for me to hold on to what was still there. We had exactly 272 days from the diagnosis until his death. During this time, I documented my father’s farewell in order to confront what I had feared my entire life: his death.

Through portraits, still lifes, rooms, everyday moments, and Orthodox farewell rituals, I capture my father’s gradual disappearance while at the same time mourning my mother. At the center are his illness, the process of saying goodbye, and the quiet closeness that developed between us.

On March 31, 2025, my father died at home. The last photograph was taken one day before his death. It shows his hands—a quiet sign of his final wish: to go fishing one last time.