Otherworldly Family Album (The Fairy Tale Not Yet Told)

By Mari Saxon

My sudden forced emigration from Moscow wrenched me from the calm and comfortable life of a middle-aged architect into one of exile in a new land. Everything is upended here, and my task now is to navigate unfamiliar terrain and somehow find my place in this new world.

Amid all of this, I began constructing a private, fairy-tale world hidden from prying eyes, which only my two daughters have access to. A world where the boundaries of possibility dissolve, a feminine fantasyland sprung from the bedtime tales mothers weave for their children. Yet, this world is steeped in a profound sense of homesickness.

Russian fairy tales are not very cheerful. Often, they are dark, enigmatic, and unsettling—but always brimming with magic. And so, our story follows suit.

We don't craft elaborate plots. We simply step into this world—up in the attic of our rented home—and take a photograph, a moment suspended in time, before slipping back out.

In our fantasyland, nothing is permanent. Everything shifts, transforms. Mother, witch, queen; daughter-girl, daughter-child, daughter-doll—each character blending into the next, caught in a constant state of transformation. There is no fixed point, only the shimmering transitions between them. And no end here, even a happy one.

While creating this project, I collaborated with Worcester Poetry Organization and 12 poets created over 20 poems inspired by some of my photographs from the project. You can read the poems here.


Photos & writing by Mari Saxon

View more of Saxon’s work on her website and Instagram.

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