Father and Son

The project delves into the emotional tapestry of father-son relationships across diverse cultures, encapsulating moments of touch as a representation of unspoken love and connection. This participatory photography journey now echoes across multiple nations, inviting global discourse on human connection and familial legacies.

"To Touch is To Give Life." - Michelangelo


As a father of two growing boys, I've come to realise how quickly the day will arrive when they will no longer need me to hold their hands on the way to school. Inspired by this thought, I initially set out to photograph my 95-year-old grandfather and my father holding hands. The project soon evolved into something much larger than I had anticipated.

Following the start of the pandemic, we decided to keep my grandfather safe, so we couldn't meet for almost a year. I started taking portraits of other fathers and their adult sons. In a world that had been already growing apart, holding hands became a silent prayer, a way to come together again. While posing, fathers and sons held hands for the first time in years, sometimes decades. It's a powerful moment, often filled with hesitation or even resistance. This act of intimacy became the project's main purpose, the photos being just a mere testament to the long-unspoken love between the men.

This unusual form of participatory photography reveals many important aspects of the father-son relationship, the vulnerability, and the varying levels of interaction and acceptance. By leaving the narratives behind these portraits open to interpretation, I invite viewers to add their own layers of meaning, making us all contributors to this evolving story of humanity.

Today, the project is a cross-cultural phenomenon, reaching corners of Bulgaria, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Serbia, and Greece. It serves as a global stage where the universal themes of human connection and legacy are performed, encouraging fathers and sons from around the world to join the act.