Today we’d like to introduce you to Famo Musa.
Hi Famo, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Somalia and raised in Kenya. My family and I came to the United States on March 12, 2004. The reason my family and I came to came to America is because of the Civil War in Somalia that started in 1991. We were forced to flee the country and come to Kenya, in Dadaab in 1996, we were there for four years then the United Nation put us in a refugee camp in Kakuma for six years. We were in the process of coming to America, my family’s goal was to have a better life, a war-free life. We live in San Diego, California ever since. I am the second oldest out of five sisters, I also have an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old. I have been a single mother for the past eight years. I am the first generation in my family to go to college.
I am a photographer a Youth Organizer with the Global ARC. I am one of the co-founders of City Heights Youth for Change (CHYFC), a youth-led organization advocating for youth in City Heights, mostly with Bantu Youths. I am a leader who has been active in my community for the past ten years. I advocate for youth and help parents who are not familiar with the educational system. She also works as a Teaching Artist at the AjA Project and does Poetry and Creative writing on the side. I have always enjoyed writing about my life and my family. From the time I first arrived in America and did not write or speak English, I wanted to tell my story, but the language barrier made it difficult for me. After four years of high school and having the basics down, I started keeping journals writing about my family and my life, everything around me. In combination with my photography and writing, they became the outlet I had to tell my story.
I am currently going to the University of California San Diego for Literature in writing. For the past ten years, I have been doing documentary and portrait photography with an emphasis on preserving memories within my community. She recently had a showcase about storytelling and generational trauma that is always buried behind memories.
Photography has always been something that I love to do, I first discovered it during my freshmen year of high school when I met the Aja project. They had a booth in Infront of the school on the first day and I gravied towards it because it said, “let us tell your story through photography” and that I always wanted to tell my story, but the language barrier got in the since my English was limited. I joined on that very day and when they placed a camera in my hands, I was reminded that I didn’t have photos of me as a baby or any photos of memories of our time in Africa and the thought made me sad because it felt like we didn’t exist before coming to America and there was no evidence of it except for our memories and I wanted to bring those memories to life so that’s what I did over the years.
Then I found out that I could make my love of photography and storytelling into a career, and it was the best decision I ever made. The best part is working on multiple projects and sharing them with my community for this submission, I decided to choose images that represent my community and culture. Each image is a piece of me. Safe Haven was taken as a way to recreate a memory of me as a child playing hide and seek in the tall mushy grass, while My City is a reminder of where I am today and the place I call home, which goes with the rest of my images located a community in City Heights where most of the refugees in San Diego were settled, the mural was painted as a reminder of the home they left behind and everything new they have now which I can relate to even when I don’t have memories of it.
I chose a collection of images of home and remembrance of what home once was, these images are a combination of past and present. Throughout my projects, I have always focused on capturing the essence of belonging somewhere especially, after locating to three different counties at the age of twelve, the concept of home being a place was washed out of me, and these images brought that to the surface.
I wanted to focus on the themes of memories, preservation, and home. I related these images with the experiences of my family relocating multiple times and having to make a new place home every time, in the name of safety. The final two images are wedding henna and sunset which are two that I love and bring my family together. Overall, each image is a representation of my family and I.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it has not been a smooth journey, I had to deal with many obstacles before I got to where I am today. I grew in a low-income family and I came to America as a refugee with little to no English so I didn’t have many doors open for me. I had to knock doors down for most of my life and the path I chose as an artist in the African Community was not a well-known one so I had to deal with my many not believing in me and my art. I had to start with my family. Starting while in my first of high school, I would shave a camera in their face every chance I got and they were not used to it so they didn’t understand my obsession with it. They thought it was a phase I would grow out of it so when senior year arrived and I declared my major, they were not on board, the support didn’t happen until I had my first student show in 2008 and Invited them to it and they saw their faces in front of the Museum of Men in Balboa park, that’s when they view change and they had been my subjects happily since then, not that they had a choice before that. Another obstacle was not I chose a path that requires a lot of networking and support to get my work out there and I didn’t have the proper introduction to the professional side of it which left me to teach myself but with the connection and the mentors, I gained through working with the Aja project I had to find my footing.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have been a photographer for over ten years and my work varies in different areas, but I found a way to tie them together. As a photographer, I do most of my work as a freelancer, but I also do collaborations with different origination and artists. My work focuses on portraits, and I also do documentaries and special events, but it is focused on within my community. I take booking for all types of headshots, graduations, family weddings, and other special occasions but my love of photography resides within storytelling where I take photos that tell stories and speaks on a deeper level with the concept of photo speaking a thousand words. Most of my big projects are based on tackling stuff topics of trauma and mental health, like in my recent installation that I got the pleasure to showcase at the you-belong-here gallery in El Cajon Blvd. The best part is working on multiple projects and sharing them with my community. For this project, I decided to collaborate with my mother and help tell her story. Throughout my projects, I have always forced on my family and my community, and this time I wanted to include storytelling. While looking through the archives of the Japanese Internment Camp, I focused on the tasks they did throughout their day and how they brought their talent and put it to good use. They made the camp their hope. I wanted to focus on the themes of family, memories, preservation, and storytelling. I related their experiences to my mother, where she was relocated multiple times and had to make a new home place every time. It was hard to put all the concepts together, the idea got modified a lot throughout the progress of the project. I finally settled on recreating her safe place, which is her bedroom, and how she makes this place sacred. I used the fabrics that she made to decorate the room. I also included a projection of our old family photos and the photos I found in the archive to be projected on the wall next to the bed. The final piece of the project is for the audio of her story to play around the room. Even though this project is different from my previous ones because it’s not dependent on photography. It is a meaningful project that allowed me to hear about my mother’s deep wounds that she kept hidden for over a decade. It was emotional and raw and I’m glad I got to hear her story of the homes she grew up in. I have many similar projects but this recent one is close to my heart because it shows how far I came and the trust my subjects have in me to be able to share their stories and voices, which leads to my next love.
I go to school for literature and writing major hoping to graduate this year, but I have been writing since I learned to speak and write English, but I started taking it seriously in 2015 when I shared my past piece with the public but before that dabbled in journalism with the help of Aja project with their Speak City Heights program with a collaboration with KPBS. I got to publish multiple news stories tacking hard topics to show exposure of my community and this allowed me to spread my community’s voice which is also another passion of mine that all my work of writing and photography revolves around helping advance my community, so it is known around the world because we have been in the shadows for a long time. With my creative work, I submitted some of my writing to review journals at both City College and Grossmont College and got published multiple times for my poetry and short stories.
As for work, I work as a teaching artist for the Aja project using my love of photography to help youth find what they love to do. I also work with the Global Arc advocating for youth who want to fight for their community.
All in all, I consider myself a photographer, it’s my creative side. Besides writing, I express myself through photography. I use photography to create memories and to let my activist side shine. I do portrait photography for families and friends, and I take nature photos for fun. I sometimes do photojournalism by writing pieces with topics such as mental health in the African community or safety issues. I found this talent when I was in high school, and I became a freelance photographer on the side three years ago. When I started high school, I did not read or speak English. I struggled a lot there because I came to the U.S. when I was 12 years old, and I did not have any formal education before this. The first time I ever went to school was in 7th grade and during my years there, I did not obtain any English. I did not actually start comprehending or speaking English until 9th grade, but I was still rusty. During my first week in high school during information week, I found the AjA Project, a non-profit organization that teaches photography after school to immigrants and refugee youth to tell their stories. when I read their pamphlet, the one thing that stood out to me was “telling your story through photography. I wanted to do just that, to learn to tell my story, that’s when I joined the class and learned about photography, and I have been doing it ever since. I use photography to treasure memories and capture moments because I did not have any photos of me growing up, I do not know what I looked like as a baby, I do not have any photos of me before I was 12 years old. I had my first picture when I was 12 years old while my family was going through the resettlement process of coming to America from the refugee camp when they were getting their papers ready. I use my art for awareness on sensitive topics, to help people and I also like to capture the beauty of natural
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
You find my journalism work at http://speakcityheights.org/?s=famo+musa
You can find my photography work @famosphotos on Instagram
Contact Info:
- Website: http://speakcityheights.org/?s=famo+musa
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/famosphotos/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/famomusa90/?ref=pages_you_manage
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/famomusa85
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCII2UBj5O2Fj3moxGjc5gLQ
Image Credits:
The photo of me is by Beto Soto
Famo Musa
