Haida Gwaii

— To walk here is to walk with the past and present at your side —

I was given the rare gift of spending a year on these remote islands at the edge of the world—
a place where the land breathes with the ocean, and the wind carries stories older than memory.

Gradually, I was welcomed—like a leaf settling on water—with curiosity, warmth, and the quiet generosity that lives in open-hearted communities.

I arrived with several cameras and a simple intention:
to offer the students of Daaxiigan Sk’adáa Née School a tool to see beyond the visible.
To tell their stories through light.
To translate silence into image.
To explore photography as a language of self-expression and personal storytelling.

But I was also there to listen.
To learn.

Living in Haida Gwaii means immersing oneself in an ancient Indigenous culture,
where every gesture is shaped by respect—
for the land, for community, for the unseen.

Here, every rock holds memory.
Every tree carries a prayer.

To walk these paths is to move with history and present intertwined.
This place does not reveal itself all at once, or from a distance.
It asks for time.
For attention.
For stillness.

The path was not always easy—
like driftwood shaped by the tides, I was worn smooth by experience.

Stepping away from the familiar, I moved toward something far larger:
growth, exchange, and a deeper connection between people and the living world.

I am profoundly grateful to the students, teachers, and families of Daaxiigan Sk’adáa Née School,
and to this land that speaks in ways words often cannot—
if you know how to listen.

Perhaps, in the time we shared, a small seed was planted.

May it take root.
May it grow into a tree, a forest, a story—
one that continues well beyond my footsteps.

Haaw’a.

Daria Cipriani