Home

2016

That morning like any other, I woke up with the sounds of wings, wings of our white grey pigeons. When they are hungry, they sit on the window of my parent’s room making oh-oo-or sounds.

When my father asks me to come home, I recall the top floor of the old building, the front-facing roof, and the shared life with cats and pigeons. And a flashback of my whole life nested in this place with my parents. It still feels like yesterday when my father was the ‘superhero’, my mother the ‘monster’, yet these images fade just as easily. My father loses his biceps. His body and memory grow fragile. My mother seems barely there, because as I grew, they grew old.

The story of how much they were in love disappeared long before I went looking for it. Now, not knowing how to recognise love, this notion of ‘home’ is the notion I have of my parents, of a place where we lived for most of our lives, a place of rhythmically repeating oh-oo-orrrs…

Homayra Adiba is a documentary photographer from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Inspired by childhood memories and personal stories, her work is anchored in the idea of ‘home’ and transitions from it. A photography graduate of Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, and Angkor Photo Workshop alumnus, Homayra has been featured in Asian Women Photographers’ Showcase 2015.