Spring 2023 Showcase Koshenina

Greta Koshenina
Mothers and Daughters: A Reflection on the Cyclical Nature of Life

This collection of photographs is from a chapter of my thesis, “Mothers and Daughters: A Reflection on the Cyclical Nature of Life.” I use an amalgamation of methods and mediums to delve into a multi-generational story of love and loss between mothers and daughters. My mom’s mother, my grandmother, died when my mom was only 18. Through oral histories with my mom, I get to know my grandmother through memory. I diverge from traditional oral histories, constructing a cohesive narrative using transcripts from recordings of my mom and me. Over the course of a year, I have made photographs of material objects from my mom’s past, creating a digital archive of ephemera and inherited artifacts. I sequence experimental Van Dyke Brown prints and more traditional documentary photography with poetic musings on stories of women, mothers, and daughters from Greco-Roman mythology. These photographs depict a story that speaks to larger, universal issues concerning motherhood, loss, and growth.

Greta Koshenina is a photographer and documentarian from Water Valley, Mississippi. In May of 2020, she graduated from the University of Mississippi’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College with a B.A. in classics and minors in mathematics and Italian. Throughout her time in Southern Studies, Greta created documentary short films about folk artists whose work is housed in the museum. Additionally, she collected oral histories from her mom and made photographs that explore themes of motherhood, memory, and home. Greta has worked at the University of Mississippi Museum since the summer of 2018, and after graduation, she will begin her full time position as Assistant Collections Manager.