Yusuf Ahmed: Between Nostalgia & Dreams

In this poignant exhibition, Ethiopian-American photographer Yusuf Ahmed delves into the intricate dance between memory and erasure, asking: What endures, and what fades? Inviting friends and acquaintances with immigrant identities to respond to a deceptively simple prompt—What is the object you’ve held onto the longest?—Ahmed uncovers objects imbued with meaning: scissors, a childhood diary, a delicate vase, a Russian doll. These seemingly ordinary items become powerful vessels, safeguarding stories of ancestors, distant homelands, and fractured yet enduring identities.

For Black, brown, and queer individuals shaped by migration and diaspora, these objects transcend nostalgia. They are sites of tension, where the weight of history meets the possibilities of the future—a space for reimagining identity, rewriting narratives, and dreaming of what could be. Through fifteen intimate photographic stories that stretch from Hanoi to Maputo, Addis Ababa to New York, Ahmed maps the deeply personal terrain of home, memory, and belonging.

From adoption to ancestry, from coming out to building chosen family, Ahmed’s lens illuminates the fragile, vital ways we tether ourselves to identities that might feel distant, yet persist. Each photograph becomes an archive, an invitation to reconsider not just where we come from, but how we choose to carry it forward.

Related Programs

Capturing Between : Yusuf Ahmed and Andina Marie Osorio in Conversation with Joyous R. Pierce

Wednesday, March 12, 6:30PM-8PM

This program brings together photographers Yusuf Ahmed and Andina Marie Osorio in conversation with scholar Joyous R. Pierce about the importance of visual art and personal archives in navigating the various states of betweenness that affect the African Diaspora.

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