TARRAH KRAJNAK - The GARDEN OF SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN

TARRAH KRAJNAK
The GARDEN OF SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN

Published by Daisbooks,
Book size 116
Pages 23 x 28 cm
Softcover Booklet insert and foil-stamped raw chipboard slipcase
Handmade
Limited edition of 200

El Jardín de Senderos Que Se Bifurcan was shortlisted for the First Photobook category in the 2021 Aperture Paris Photobook Awards.

Named after a Borges story by the same title, my book El Jardín de Senderos Que Se Bifurcan explores the process of tracing my origins amidst contradictory familial narratives. Indigenous to Peru and orphaned as an infant I was adopted into a working class transracial family from the American coal country and raised as a twin to my African American brother. This early experience of racial difference established my ongoing preoccupation with belonging, orphanhood, ancestral exile, origins, and the way these constructs are written on the body and in the archive. In this project, I set out not to recover some stable authentic identity hidden by the circumstances of my birth and adoption, but rather to build a psychic history, to imagine lineages, to invent mothers, and to resurrect ancestors in an effort to understand my place within the larger political, social, and historical narratives of my birth place– Lima, Peru circa 1979.

The work itself moves between found vernacular photographs, my own original writing and photography, and appropriated images taken from 1979 political magazines that I collected in Lima, Peru. I am interested in sites of violence against women, and the stories of missing women, children, and forced migration or displacement as a result of the trauma of war. Finally, there are many portraits of other women born the same year as me in Lima, Peru, 1979– my “time twins” depicted throughout the book. I found these women through ads I placed in and around Lima, and I collected their oral histories. Throughout the project I use this material and a combination of mistranslation, projection, and re-photographic strategies as a way to reclaim, rewrite, speculate, and imagine a lost history.

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Named after a Borges story of the same title, my book El Jardín de Senderos Que Se Bifurcan explores the process of tracing my origins amidst conflicting family narratives. Originally from Peru and orphaned at a young age, I was adopted into a transracial, working-class family in American coal country and raised as a twin to my African-American brother. This early experience of racial difference established my lifelong preoccupation with belonging, orphanhood, ancestral exile, origins, and how these constructions are written on the body and in archives. In this project, I was not seeking to recover a stable authentic identity hidden by the circumstances of my birth and adoption, but rather to construct a psychic history, to imagine lineages, to invent mothers, and to resurrect ancestors in an effort to understand my place in the larger political, social, and historical narratives of my birthplace—Lima, Peru circa 1979.

The work itself oscillates between found vernacular photographs, my own original writing and photography, and appropriated images from political magazines from 1979 that I collected in Lima, Peru. I am interested in sites of violence against women and stories of women, missing children, and forced migration or displacement as a result of the trauma of war. Finally, there are numerous portraits of other women born in the same year as me in Lima, Peru, 1979—my “time twins” represented throughout the book. I found these women through ads I placed in and around Lima, and collected their oral histories. Throughout the project, I use this material and a combination of strategies of mistranslation, projection, and re-photography as a way to recover, rewrite, speculate, and imagine a lost history.