I always leave the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) graduate opening reception sweating. With more than 100 artists, it’s a marathon art-viewing experience. Bring your water, grab some cookies, and take it all in. Every year I leave saying, “I’m exhausted.” However, this year, things look a lot different.
“Process has always been at the core of my image-making practice,” Emuakhagbon says. Her photographic project began in Dallas while working on a series that focused on family and her uncle’s migration from Nigeria to Japan. When in Japan continuing the project, Emuakhagbon met a few African migrant workers and began having conversations about migration and the definition of “home.” During this experience, she says, “the project became less and less about anguished confusion and searching, and more about located hope, solidity, and structure. It’s less about the pain within the waiting and seeking of the journey, and more about the hope found while stripping oneself of the once-perceived burdens of the move itself. Less pain and mourning, more reverence.”
