La Uma / Our Home

Things started missing in the village once a big fire burned down thirty houses at night. The disappearance occurs in a flash, leaving marks on the ground.

A still wanders to the remainder of the house to mourn over her broken plates scattered around the ashes. She cooks every day for fifteen people in her Uma.

R was about to jump into the fire when she realized her woven indigo textile, which took a yearlong labor to make, had been burned. Without that, I’m as good as dead.

M would stand near the shore, chanting a prayer. But when the tears flow, it doesn’t matter who she mourns over now; her house, her dead son, or her cheating husband.

La Uma / Our Home is an intimate reflection on loss and life in a village after a 2022 fire. The series portrays commonalities in the way people of Kodi Balaghar use the outdoor as a space for living and mourning that often was kept in private, away from the public. It is an attempt to understand Sumbanese ways of living as an alternative form of family structure symbolized in the spatiality and identity of their Uma. Supported by a grant from World Monument Funds & Magnum Foundation.

Installation View 

Heritage in Focus
at Paris Photo 2024, Grand Palais

curated by Kristen Lubben with Eric Gyamfi, Yael Martínez, Victor Zea & Diego López Calvin