My medium is photography, and my current work involves synthesizing ideas of place and displacement and its relationship to identity formation. It also has a specific narrative that symbolizes a passage of time in my personal life story. I am using images that I have taken, in addition to an archive of images that were not taken by me. I use collage and digital image manipulation in Photoshop to physically shift and deconstruct images, initiating a metaphor about displacement in a human narrative.  

Over winter break, I spent time reflecting on the work that I made in the fall, which was about transience in and around Carlisle, PA. I was exploring different territories and photographing my surroundings, trying to create a connection between place, subject, and time. I was making work similar to the work I had created when I studied abroad in Rome in the Spring of 2022. Upon my return from Rome to the States, I grew so much and did not want to let go of that notion of exploration. However, I felt slightly confined in a place where I had a hard time finding interest in the subject matter.   

I was born in Hyderabad, India, and adopted at the age of 3 months into an amazing family. I settled in the US with my family, living in Minnesota. We moved to Tokyo, Japan shortly after my sister was born, and then later moved to Northern Virginia where I currently live. When I was younger, I knew that when I was older, I wanted to document my journeys. I traveled a lot as a child, but some of the places I went to are not in my memories but in the memories of others who have told me about them.  I was raised by my parents and my maternal grandparents who share stories and memories of my childhood that I have never heard. This body of work returns to the spirit of that thought, using a personal archive of images that have helped me reflect on and interact with the events that I do not fully remember. It also helps me to synthesize memories, interacting with previous versions of myself. 

-Anika B. Naimpally