lilli waters

A Sense of Belonging
2015

This series explores our innate need to be accepted, what it means to belong, and how identity is shaped through place, memory, and connection. Belongingness is a fundamental human need. Without it, the self becomes fractured, uncertain.

By surrounding and immersing my subjects within the natural world, I aim to give them a sense of grounding—a visual and emotional landscape that reflects both their individuality and their interconnectedness. Each image becomes a quiet search for anchoring, asking: where do we belong, and who are we within the world that holds us?

Set against wild, often darkened environments—rivers, rocks, and dense bush—the figures are at once vulnerable and powerful. They are not separate from nature but part of it, absorbed into the textures, shadows, and rhythms of the land. Through this visual intimacy, the work becomes a meditation on self-acceptance, environmental kinship, and the reclamation of the body as a site of belonging.