Come home Napa’s (grandchildren) Come home to where you belong - Mer

Colonization tried to sever roots, to replace belonging with Isolation. My work of reclamation resists that. It is not simply historical recovery; it is a remaking of Identity. Relearning cultural practices, reclaiming language fragments, reconnecting with Country - these acts are deliberate restorations of belonging. My mob is not a distant past; they are living, breathing presence in these photographs and in the people who carry their memory forward.

Tracing lineage has been as much about asking questions as finding answers. I’ve learned to listen for the small confirmations; references tucked into an Aka’s story, the echo of a place-name that keeps returning. Sometimes the trail runs cold; sometimes it opens into an introduction with relatives I did not know I had. Each discovery reshapes the map toward home.

These images belong to me, to my family, to the line that runs  from the colony back to the Motherland. They are not museum pieces. They are evidence and invitation; evidence that we were here, an invitation for others to come home too.