ADRIFT III — LAILA ABDUL-HADI JADALLAH

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The Unexpected

This series is the result of a ten day trip, 3,801 miles through South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Alberta, Canada with stops at five national parks including The Grand Tetons, Yellowstone National Park and Banff National Park.

In August of 2015, I had the opportunity to travel, for the first time, on an extensive road trip throughout the Midwest U.S. While not intentionally meant to be a continuation of Adrift, I found myself not only traveling in country, but traveling inward and seeking a different type of "home" than that of my original series. Though many of the questions I posed in my original artist statement about this series are still true, I thought of many new questions, like: what traveling reveals about yourself, who you are, what you believe in; how do you view the world? And how is this related to those you share space with?

What I discovered in reflection was that a search for home does not have to be confined to a physical place, but it can also mean seeking and finding a place to live within. A certain time even—in the past, the future and, always with the aim of living in the present moment. Often we are not only longing for a place to do so, within ourselves, but also with the people who we choose to spend our time with.

My search for homes continues, but the type of home I seek changes as quickly as that of the landscapes I drove through, walked on and interacted with.