Belonging & Motion — Charlie Grosso

The Question: What happens to a sense of home in a world built for motion?

Home is not a place. It is a condition — one that can be lost, approximated, stumbled upon, and deliberately abandoned in favor of the unknown. We want to be held and free in the same breath. The question is not only where we belong. It is why belonging is never quite enough.

THE EVIDENCE

Fetal Position & Drool

/photography series/

In 2009, after walking away from a life, I started photographing every bed I slept in. Hotels, hostels, hammocks, tents. Sometimes alone, sometimes not — don't be nosy, this isn't about that. The series began as a question about home and became, slowly, an answer.

An unsupported rally from London to Ulaanbaatar in a small car not built for the distance. Started with a team. Finished alone. The only woman that year to complete it solo. Ten thousand miles of asking what it means to keep going when there is no good reason to stop.

Across India in a rickshaw. Another absurd distance, another impractical vehicle, another country that has no interest in making it easy. The road as a way of thinking.

Essays from the Nomadic Years

This inquiry generated writing. Currently being selected and documented.