Upon returning home after a year of studying in England, I developed a curiosity to explore and document my hometown - the intimacies, the mystique in the mundane, the people, and the textures that defined the place for what it is. It had always been beautiful yet home needs to accept me for me to love back. In my 10 years of being a photographer, I never felt like documenting my family and my hometown. It was almost like a light bulb moment when I met my father after a year. This place was rapidly changing and I wanted to capture it before everything changed. I observed how the environment and the spaces inhabited were a container for so much - shared histories, friendships, stories of the Bangladesh partition, triumphs, and tragedies. I did travel back home now and then but never stayed beyond a week.
This is a continuation of the project 'Textures of Belonging', a work about making and activating memories of home and using photography to bring out the diaspora voices, the “non-belonging others” who are trying to find a sense of belonging in an alienated space. Strongly drawing on the notions of home and belonging, my search was about the idea of home. Coming back, I realized that I was born right here, in this sleepy little town of West Bengal, away from the highly pretentious city life. Surprising as it might sound, even after living in cities for over two decades, I could never feel as if I belonged there, similar to what my mother had experienced. I kept looking for those connections and emotions everywhere I went only to find them back here. This is my way of representing this re-connection with home.
Mouli Paul is a photographer from India who recently finished studying an MA in Photography from Arts University Plymouth. Her work revolves around notions of home and belonging, family archives, and mental health bordering between documentary and fine art. She has recently started working through the process of analog which allows her to slow down, the opposite of what she does with her commercial photography.