I have been searching for a home for most of my life without realising it. My journey began on 25th December 2013 before sunrise, when war broke out in my hometown of Malakal, South Sudan. I was just ten years old. Christmas was only hours away. The day before, I spent the afternoon playing inside our house, not knowing it would be the last time I would experience home as I knew it. Two days later, my family fled to a UNMISS protection site, where we stayed until we managed to leave Malakal in April 2014.
Khartoum became the next place we called home. I spent almost ten years there, continued my studies, grew up, made friends, and built new memories; life was very good. Then, in April 2023, war broke out again. Once more, my family was forced to leave everything behind.
Together with my parents and my three siblings, we crossed into South Sudan through Renk, where we stayed for nearly two months at our auntie’s house. Life was hard, but I kept being grateful because we had a better place to stay that many refugees and fellow returnees didn't have.
I wasn't able to document everything I witnessed. Looking for work, I moved to Paloch to stay with my cousin before finally returning to Malakal. I walked through streets I still knew by heart until I reached the house where I was born. It had been completely destroyed, but the memories were still there. Later, in August, I reunited with my family and in September 2023 we flew to Juba, where I stayed until January 2026, before continuing my journey to Kenya through Uganda.
I don't know where I will call home tomorrow. What I know is that I want to return to these places, not only to photograph the homes I have carried with me, but also to continue documenting the lives of people whose stories deserve to be seen. I want to walk those streets again, breathe the familiar air, and reconnect with the places that continue to shape who I am today.
Homes We Carry is my way of holding onto those places while they continue to change. Through photography, I explore how displacement transforms our relationship with home, and how memory allows us to carry parts of it wherever we go.
In Juba on Christmas Eve, December of 2025. Looking at these children took me back to the evening of December 24th, 2013, when I was playing outside my home in Malakal, excited for Christmas Day, not knowing it would be the last evening I would play there before the conflict broke out the next day.
A portrait of me layered with an image I took of my family's home in Khartoum, Sudan. The photograph reflects how memories of home continue to exist within me, even after the place itself has been left behind.
A reflection on tribalism and the divisions that continue to shape South Sudan, asking how prejudice can prevent people from building a shared sense of home.
A traditional mask placed inside a suit becomes a symbolic portrait of ancestors whose presence continues to live through memory, history, and the homes they struggled to protect.