No matter how much I try to escape myself, it’s impossible when I’m alone. After almost two and a half years far from home, I feel new emotions emerging within me, gradually transforming, revealing parts of myself that once went unnoticed. Adapting to a new reality and foreign country is not just about adjusting to unfamiliar rules and language; forced migration is a rupture with everything you know and love, a departure from familiar places, loved ones, familiar faces, and all that once filled you. When you’re forced to leave home, everything changes.

Suddenly, you find yourself in a new world that feels both empty and overwhelming: it’s as if a part of you is lost, and the unfamiliar surrounds you from every side, pressing in, forcing you to find balance within unknown circumstances.

At the intersection of nostalgia and adaptation, a unique experience emerges — you learn to rebuild yourself, accepting each new day as an opportunity to find inner strength. Gradually, this foreign country becomes not just a place to stay but a new chapter in life, where, alongside anxiety, there are glimmers of hope, small victories, and moments that allow you to feel that even in foreign lands, you can find yourself again.

These feelings and experiences are reflected in my current photography series — it’s a story of the emotions experienced by hundreds of thousands of people due to circumstances beyond their choice.

-Tunbridge Wells, October 2024