Diana Markosian takes an intimate approach to her photography and video storytelling, in work that is both conceptual and documentary.

A former ballet dancer, her connection to dance is woven throughout her work, including directing a film for the New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala. Her two acclaimed monographs Santa Barbara and Father were named Photo Book of the Year by MoMA, Time, and Le Monde.

Markosian’s work has been exhibited by major museums internationally, including MoMA in San Francisco, the International Center of Photography in New York and the National Portrait Gallery in London. She is a regular contributer to Vanity Fair, Vogue, and The New Yorker. Markosian holds a masters degree from Columbia University.

Inspired by Victor Hugo’s Fantômes, this series offers an intimate glimpse into the Cuban National Ballet’s production of Giselle.

First staged in Paris in 1841, Giselle tells of a young peasant girl who dies of heartbreak, only to return as a spirit who redeems her remorseful lover. In Cuba, the ballet carries a different weight. Once a symbol of national pride, the country’s storied ballet tradition now stands on fragile ground. Amid blackouts, food shortages, and political strain, dancers face an impossible choice: remain to safeguard a fading legacy, or depart in search of possibility.

Artist Diana Markosian, herself a former ballet dancer, captures this tension with a painterly intimacy, channeling a modern-day Degas.

“Markosian’s dancers almost never appear solid but instead slump, fray, duplicate, and mist at the edges. An arm dissolves into an X-ray-like wisp, or a froth of tulle... These are melancholy and internal creatures... refugees in flight from their own bodies, or perhaps from the decaying world they inhabit.”

— Jennifer Homans, The New Yorker