Carrying home with you.

This project began with homesickness, a desire to reconnect with Morocco through the texture of ordinary life. After moving away, I found myself missing ordinary things: the light on a street corner, a vendor at rest, children mid-game in an alley. So I went looking for them. I remotely distributed disposable cameras to people from back home: a farmer, a street vendor, a middle schooler. I asked them to photograph whatever brought them joy. Their photos feel found, not composed; authentic, not staged. They became the ground for my mixed-media and painting. My intention was to make these pieces felt rather than seen.

The work of Hassan Hajjaj, a Moroccan artist celebrated for elevating ordinary street life and culture into bold, joyful portraiture, influenced the way I approach my pieces. My work lives between documentation and reconstruction while following the emotional force of memory. Ultimately, it asks what it means to carry a home within you after you have left it, and insists that the ordinary deserves to be preserved and valued.