Oumayma Ben Tanfous captures the journey of returning in Between I and Lands

Oumayma Ben Tanfous’ debut photobook Between I and Lands presents a complex meditation on migration, memory, and the elusive notion of home. The Tunisian-Canadian photographer, known for her evocative portraits, turns her lens inward, documenting her return to Tunisia twenty years after leaving. Over the course of two years, she revisited the locales of her childhood, capturing moments that explore, both spiritually and physically, the tension between past and present, absence and re-entry.

The book’s 124 pages reveal a series of delicate, yet striking photographs—lush, sun-soaked landscapes that blend seamlessly with elusive yet intimate stills of strangers encountered along the way— a photographic composition of longing, displacement, and the human search for roots. The book is steeped in both the bitter sweetness of memory and the quiet revelations of a homeland in flux.

The photobook is built around this emotional and intellectual journey of arrival, and narrates a story focused on personal nostalgia and themes of longing. The images themselves, often rich in texture and atmosphere, is somewhat a kind of personal diary in its intimate visual portrayals showcased in the photographs, and literarily, with a number of poems penned by Ben Tanfous interspersed in the book. Ben Tanfous’ soft, muted color palette and intimate portraits convey a sense of fragility, offering deeper insight into the complexities of homecoming. This convergence of image and word elevates the photobook into a multi-layered exploration of identity and the complex emotions that arise when one interacts with a place that both belongs to them and yet, in their absence, has changed.

The images of landscapes are compelling in their stillness, presenting Tunisia’s topography as both familiar and alien, and, in a deeper sense, may sometimes be commentary on the theme of prolonged absence from a place held dear, especially given the socio-political context of Tunisia, the subject of the book, that has evolved significantly in the photographer’s absence.

There is a certain tension in the photographs—the landscapes often echoing the longing for physical presence in a certain place, and the spiritual idyll of finally achieving it. While the subjects portraying humans are intimate and detailed, and reflect that sense of physical homecoming which attaches itself to notions which are abstract yet very tangible, attached to the human—culture, tradition, religion, language and so on.

What does elevate Between I and Lands is the inclusion of literary contributions that accompany the images. The texts, written by Ben Tanfous and Taous Dahmani respectively, offer insight into the emotional terrain of homecoming, adding layers of complexity to the visual experience, inviting moments of pause and reflection—providing a bridge between the stillness of the photographs and the dynamism of lived experience.

In Between I and Lands, Ben Tanfous creates a thoughtful exploration of what it means to return to one’s homeland after years of absence and perhaps, alienation. The work offers a personal, poignant, narrative of nostalgia and belonging, challenging the viewer to reconsider the politics of homecoming or to delve deeper into the complex realities of migration. The book serves as an aesthetic reflection on memory, and acts as a meditation on the larger socio-political issues that underpin the Arab diaspora experience.

Between I and Lands is a visually compelling yet restrained exploration of a timeless theme. It succeeds in presenting an elegant personal, introspective narrative while also providing a critical examination of the cultural and political complexities inherent in the act of homecoming.