“I ask myself, why go looking when the story has gone on without you? But it is the wrong question. I retrace steps. I become the collector. I build a chronicle, a chain of stories.”

Bodhi Washington Square West presents I return again to Basilicata: photographs by Addison Namnoum. This series of photographs follows her travels through the southern Italian province her grandmother’s family emigrated from. The exhibition offers a backdrop of ecological and geological forces along the Appennini—the deforestation, soil makeup, fault lines, earthquakes, and landslides—which have had lasting political and personal impacts on millions of lives. At their heart, the images detail Namnoum’s intimate encounters with migrants, fellow artists, and most of all, the land.

In her photography, Namnoum captures deeply textured images which call to distinct yet faraway memories. While intimate and gritty, there is also an edge to her work: a distance, a boundary, where the subject is defined apart from the artist. This is her first photography exhibition.

Light refreshments will be served at the First Friday opening, Jan. 6 from 5:30-8 p.m.