“What does it mean when home is a place you don’t want to return to?”
Nowhere is an ongoing lens-based exploration of my memories of growing up in Drumheller, AB, attempting to reconcile the place with my traumatic history within it. I was raised for most of my life in Drumheller and my formative experience there was marked by trauma, developing mental illness, loneliness, isolation, and religious indoctrination. Drumheller is a place where I grew up feeling lost and without an identity, and yet it is a place I felt compelled to return to for some time as if it somehow held the answer to all my lingering struggles with mental illness. I realize now that what fascinates me about Drumheller is the incongruity of the place with my traumatic history there. It is a beautiful, kitschy, strange little town that belies a traumatic history for me. Coming to terms with this tension is at the heart of this project.