A Home for Water Lilies

Like a water lily, I have roots, but yet, I drift. This exhibit is meant to capture the quiet dissonance of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once—the longing for home entwined with the alienation and joy of discovery. Through these images, moments of stillness and fragmentation emerge, reflecting the inner feelings of an identity suspended between past and present.

Each photograph is a meditation on the emotional weight of migration: the stark contrast between nostalgia and adaptation, the ghostly presence of memory, and the endless search for grounding.

In this series, familiarity and estrangement coexist, expressing the dichotomy of alienation that comes along with being immigrant, alienation not just from a place, but from a former self, coupled together with discovery of a new identity. These images are a testament to the immigrant experience, where home is both an anchor and an illusion, and where the search for belonging is a dream forever unfolding.

The title comes from Mohsin Hamid's essay of the same name.