Manya Naranzogt: Home
“In many ways, paradox has become a central theme to this year. Looking through my photos taken this year I am struck at how much trauma we have all gone through since January. Home used to mean comfort, a delicacy just out of reach. After global quarantine, home has become synonymous with restriction, fear and anxiety, isolation. I wanted to focus this selection on the paradoxical and inevitable nature of being nostalgic for a traumatic phase in one’s life. Much of my photos are from San Francisco, where I hated living in but now that I am far away I look back with tenderness at the grinding emotional pain I had been through in that city.”
—Manya Naranzogt
“A view near my apartment in San Francisco. This was taken on a morning walk in an attempt to feel good in the world.”
Morning (San Francisco, 2020)
Coffee on your tongue (San Francisco, 2020)
“From another walk taken near Coit Tower. Although I was quarantined at home, I am so thankful I was quarantined with Robert, my partner.”
Cold at noon (Travertine Spring, 2019)
“A deep black pit with no end, so is life and so is pain.”
You will come back one day (Gobi Desert, 2018)
“A sentence that chases me through time. One day I will return just as my parents did and their parents before. Will I be the last?”
Honey afternoon (Davis, 2019)
“The only photo that brings me joy. The warm afternoon felt suspended in time.”
Oh (South Lake Tahoe, 2019)
“Lonesomeness, it feels so familiar.”
Blind Panic (Daly City, 2019)
“I used to struggle with deep anxiety at dusk, I was constantly afraid of not being able to sleep. If 5 o’clock is too hazy or too dark I will get a sudden jolt of fear that lasts through the night.”
“Squeeze me tightly.”
Descending (San Francisco, 2018)
My back is cold and I’m alone (San Francisco, 2019)
“Wandering through abandoned giant buildings makes me feel so small. I hated and loved the way the city made me feel inconsequential, the nights were ripe with possibilities and anonymity. Everything felt slightly out of control.”
For once I am safe at night (San Francisco, 2019)
“This was taken on Halloween night last year. How long will it be until I can stumble through neighborhoods, shouting with my friends?”
Manya Naranzogt is an interdisciplinary artist that focuses on photography, painting, and sculpture centered on themes of nostalgia and security. As a child, they learned everything about photography from their father who shoots landscape photography in the Mongolian wilderness.