Daria’s parents unfortunately got divorced when she was only fifteen years old. This project of hers entitled Embrace is a six year project all compressed into a body of work containing a total of thirteen images. For Daria, photography became a sort of tool in which was a way in which she released the pain that she was holding alongside a way of telling/showing her mother what she was really feeling. The divorce was never something that came up in conversation, and she was brought up in a family where you smile when things get tough; to hide your problems; pretend that everything was okay even if you were so lost, confused and broken on the inside. Daria studied photography at Moscow State University and at the Danish Media School of Journalism. She purposely presents this story in English and stated: “When I imagine the way I would talk about this in Russian, it causes me pain.” Vulnerability, however, grew into strength as she worked.
” I didn’t believe that I could rely on them any longer so, all of a sudden, I had to grow up in one day. First, I was trying to become a mom for my mom but it felt wrong.” —Daria Klimasheva
Daria stated the fact that you cannot go any further when you are full of pain and fear, and that eventually you realize that you can’t ignore it, that it’s time to face the truth and heal yourself. That is what she did, and she did so by putting some of her memories on the shelf. By creating an emotional, expressive visual story about the challenges of growing up in a family where feelings long remained below the surface, her images capture this visual darkness that she perhaps held inside of her mind and heart. Although her subject matter differs from mine, as her project focuses on her mothers struggle with depression after a divorce and mine focuses on domestic violence, I still feel as if there is still this connection that both explore a ‘dark’ side within a home environment. I find both concepts of visual and contextual aspects interesting and I think that her work is very poetic and conceptual.
Her work is very inspirational to me and I really admire the fact that over a six year period, she narrowed down and selected only thirteen images that represent her deepest and darkest feelings. Something else that I find interesting about her work is the fact that all of her outcomes are is black and white. I think this is powerful and was done purposefully because black and white images don’t usually give depth to the image and by doing this, it challenges the way the viewer thinks and makes them think about what is going on within the image and why.
Here are a selection of her images:
