2nd place
silver star award
Diana Cheren Nygren
united states 
Photo © Diana Cheren Nygren
title
The Persistence of Family
Though rooted in personal narratives, the pictures also address both a universal experience and a culturally specific one. My father's parents came to the United States to escape religious persecution in Ukraine. My mother's family came earlier, part of a jewish community determined to erase their history and assimilate into the upper crust of Midwestern American culture. Both of these histories have formed me. Many of their specifics seem lost on my children, although I have watched them become more connected to their history as overt acts of antisemitism in the United States become more commonplace and more recently as war decimatess Ukraine. This work raises questions about genetics in forming and connecting people, and the continuity of historical narratives, and suggests both past and future resides within each of us.
Her project When the Trees are Gone has been featured in Dek Unu Mag, Square Magazine, Photonews, Domus Magazine online, Cities Magazine, and iLeGaLiT, and won Best In Show in the exhibition Nurture/Nature juried by photographer Laura McPhee, the Grand Prize in Photography from Art Saves Humanity, Discovery of the Year in the 2020 Tokyo International Foto Awards, 2nd place in Fine Art/Collage in the 2020 International Photo Awards, bronze in Fine Art/Digitally Enhanced in the 2020 Prix de la Photographie, and was a finalist for Fresh2020, Urban2020, the Hopper Prize, and OpenImage Barcelona, and a Merit Winner in the 2020 Rfotofolio Selections.
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entry description
This series interrogates the role of family history in shaping our sense of ourselves and our place in the world. I have composited my family photographs, photographs I took of my children, and images of the New England landscapes in which they and I grew up. In the images, generations reach for each other across time. I exist in the tension of the space between those who came before me and those who will come after. The project is driven by a longing for connection, and by an anxiety around individual responsibility in passing on family history.Though rooted in personal narratives, the pictures also address both a universal experience and a culturally specific one. My father's parents came to the United States to escape religious persecution in Ukraine. My mother's family came earlier, part of a jewish community determined to erase their history and assimilate into the upper crust of Midwestern American culture. Both of these histories have formed me. Many of their specifics seem lost on my children, although I have watched them become more connected to their history as overt acts of antisemitism in the United States become more commonplace and more recently as war decimatess Ukraine. This work raises questions about genetics in forming and connecting people, and the continuity of historical narratives, and suggests both past and future resides within each of us.
about the photographer
Diana Cheren Nygren is a fine art photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. Her work explores the relationship of people to their physical environment and landscape as a setting for human activity. Her photographs address serious social questions through a blend of documentary practice, invention, and humor. Her work as a photographer is the culmination of a life-long investment in the power of art and visual culture to shape and influence social change.Her project When the Trees are Gone has been featured in Dek Unu Mag, Square Magazine, Photonews, Domus Magazine online, Cities Magazine, and iLeGaLiT, and won Best In Show in the exhibition Nurture/Nature juried by photographer Laura McPhee, the Grand Prize in Photography from Art Saves Humanity, Discovery of the Year in the 2020 Tokyo International Foto Awards, 2nd place in Fine Art/Collage in the 2020 International Photo Awards, bronze in Fine Art/Digitally Enhanced in the 2020 Prix de la Photographie, and was a finalist for Fresh2020, Urban2020, the Hopper Prize, and OpenImage Barcelona, and a Merit Winner in the 2020 Rfotofolio Selections.
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