Diana Markosian’s work, on view at Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, is an exploration of the aftermath of love.

On the occasion of the third edition of EXPOSED - Torino Photo Festival, Gallerie d’Italia presents Replaced, a project by Diana Markosian, curated by Brandei Estes and commissioned by Intesa SanPaolo. With this exhibition, the American artist of Armenian origin traces back her relationship with the man she loved, reenacting the moments she lived with an actor. For Markosian, photography works as a practice to regain agency, to remember without being overwhelmed by loss, but to give meaning to what she experienced, to the love she gave, to the end of it. An intimate work that speaks about universal questions: where does all the love go when a relationship ends? What is the meaning of love if experiences that felt so unique with a person are experienced again, but with someone else, and we can only look at life going on without us?

Replaced is an exploration into memory, an act of reliving what was, going beyond contemplation of the past, but instead recreating it. Analysing what is remembered, where the mind fails, distorts and forgets, to finally let go and accept the end of love. Moving between documentary and storytelling, Markosian exposes her most vulnerable self and gifts us with her memories, doing for us what most of the time we don’t have the courage to do: feeling everything again, looking back at the beauty, happiness, anger, sadness – all of it. To accept and maybe, somehow, through time, begin again.

Usually, people photograph things to stay connected to memories, not to let go of moments in their lives. You seem to do the opposite—photography appears to function as a way of distancing yourself from the past. Is that right?

Photography, for me, isn’t about distancing, it’s about confrontation. It’s a way of exploring my inner world. When I first picked up a camera at 20, that impulse to explore was already there; what’s changed is its depth. It has become a tool for processing. Through it, I can return to moments that once felt beyond my control, not simply to relive them, but to examine them, to understand their weight and meaning.

How did you choose the actor you collaborated with?

I wanted to feel, as deeply as possible, the presence of the person I had lost, while also stepping back into the version of myself who loved him. We needed to embody the two people I remembered. I worked with a casting director to find someone who could move through this story with me, someone who could help me relive it.

What was it like to have an unknown body and person reenacting such personal memories?

It was painful. I didn’t want to go through it again, to lose him all over. The hardest part was knowing how it would end, and choosing to live through it once more.

Weren’t you afraid of distancing yourself from those memories, of losing the intimate bond you had with them?

Those memories already felt taken from me, that’s what inspired the project. They no longer existed as they once had; they’d been overwritten. In a way, that distance was already there. This process became a way of reclaiming them, of existing in the story a little longer before saying goodbye.

Writer Alice Notley says that writing is not therapy and that she still carries her grief. Is it the same for you with photography?

Art has given me a language to process, to feel. There’s a part of me that wants to rush that process, but it doesn’t work that way. I felt it deeply in my previous work: how much I wanted to let go of the story, to not be defined by it, and how it only became possible when I was actually ready.

Was there a moment during the shoot when you realized you couldn’t remember things exactly as they were, and that your memory was somehow distorted?

Of course. And I leaned into it. In a sense, the work became a blend of memory and interpretation, weaving together fragments from different relationships.

What did you feel when you saw the images printed and out in the world?

It was difficult. I wish I had a different book to make.