Mari Firkatian

Family portrait of Mari's paternal grandfather Boghos, grandmother, Mari's father Agop, and her father's older brother Rupen, 1926.

Mari is a descendant of Armenian genocide surivors, which all four of her grandparents had been part of at the time. She never met any of them except her maternal grandmother, who told her all the stories she knows today. The rest of her grandparents had passed by the time she was born. The two photos depicted are both very important to Mari, as she doesn't have many photos of her paternal grandparents or maternal great-grandparents.

"This is a photograph of my paternal family. It includes my grandfather, my grandmother, Mariam, my father Agop, his older brother, Rupen. And this was taken in Bulgaria and probably was taken in the mid to late thirties. And I have very few pictures of my paternal grandparents and these are very precious for me."

Mari's great-grandmother, great-grandfather, grandparents, and other Firkatian family.

"The other photograph I want to share is also incredibly precious to me, simply because it's the only photograph I have of my two great-grandparents on my mother's side. So these are my great grandparents, my grandmother, my grandfather, and their third born child. My grandmother had four live births and only my mother survived. And so that's what this photo is."

These photos provide a deeper connection to the families and relatives Mari never had the chance to know on a personal level. This in turn creates a strong tie between the people within the stories she's heard and who they actually were or what they looked like.