Hady Barry
i am (not) your mother
Hady Barry’s i am (not) your mother is a deeply personal look at the complexities of familial relationships. Based on her own experiences of caring for her younger siblings, Barry has combined archival images and new documentary photographs with journal entries and excerpts from transcribed conversations with her mother, resulting in a tender and heart-wrenching portrait of a relationship which is full of both love and hurt.
After fleeing Côte d’Ivoire with her family in 2002 due to the outbreak of civil war, Barry and her family ended up in Senegal. Shortly after, Barry’s mother moved to the United States to claim asylum, with the intention that her children would follow, once her asylum claim had been processed. It was three years before Barry saw her mother again. In that period, she was left to care for herself and her three younger siblings, at the tender age of thirteen. In this series, portraits of Barry and her mother are contrasted with soft-focus photographs of plants, a reminder that growth, momentum, is what keeps us alive.
One cannot draw any neat conclusions from Barry’s work. There is no right or wrong, no hero and no villain, just the assertion that they are moving forward, together, in their own way.
This text is published in Foam Magazine #68: Talent, in June 2026. Read more about the Foam Talent Runners-up.
About the artist
HADY BARRY is a Guinean-American artist who works with photography and words to explore memory and intimacy. Her practice is introspective and shaped by a desire to hold what most people try to forget. She is a Building Beyond Fellow (Cycle 5)–a program of the Prince Claus Fund–and has been shortlisted for the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2025/2026. Her debut photobook i am (not) your mother received the Juror's Special Mention at the 2024 Aperture Photobook Awards. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at National Portrait Gallery (UK) and the Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE).
About the author
ISABEL WALTER is a writer and curator based in Amsterdam. She currently works as Assistant Curator at Foam, and Editorial Assistant at Foam Magazine. She is particularly interested in art which expands the technical and conceptual boundaries of photography, moving image and new technologies.
Image credit: Ai am (not) your mother by Hady Barry