The subject of homecoming is no stranger to photographer Lisa Sorgini. Her work forms a quiet, poetic thread connecting women, mothers, and children across time and place. Lisa’s distinctive imagery – romantic yet grounded – captures the layered reality of motherhood. With echoes of Dutch Old Masters in her use of light and tone, her photographs feel timeless while being deeply rooted in the now.

As we prepare for the release of her new book In Passing, published by the esteemed art book publisher Libraryman, we spoke to Lisa about her evolving artistic journey, her reflections on Behind Glass, and the enduring emotional power of photography.

So I guess the first question would be; where and what is home to you?

For as long as I’ve been a mother, home hasn’t felt like a geographic place. It’s wherever my family is. At the moment, that’s on the east coast of Australia, in a coastal town on Bundjalung Country.

Interestingly enough your surroundings of bright sunny beaches and subtropical greens don’t show up in your work too much, what other influences do you see in your work?

It’s true, the landscape around me rarely appears in my imagery. I think I’m more drawn to interior worlds, both literally and metaphorically. My influences often emerge subconsciously. What consciously inspires me is harder to define, but I’m deeply shaped by the intangible: dreams, sensory experiences, memory, and emotion.

Your book Behind Glass received international acclaim. Can you talk about how it came to be?

Behind Glass began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That early period felt so unfamiliar, this looming uncertainty without any reference point. In many ways, it mirrored the experience of early motherhood: disorienting, isolating, overwhelming. At that time, my youngest son was six months old, and my eldest was five. I felt, like so many others, completely suspended, cut off from support systems and trying to parent in a vacuum.

Creating the series was a lifeline. It allowed me to connect with other women, to document something ephemeral but deeply shared. That intimacy is what resonated most.

There’s a visual and symbolic weight to the glass in that work. Can you speak to that?

The glass became a metaphor: both a barrier and a shield. It can represent protection, but also separation, an emotional or psychological distance. I never wanted to dictate how viewers interpret it. My aim was honesty, both in what I experienced and what the women I photographed were expressing.

You often explore themes that are both tender and painful—love, grief, memory. How do you navigate that as an artist?

I come from a family that was far from perfect, so I’ve always felt the dual presence of joy and pain. They coexist. That sensitivity naturally informs my work. I know that everyone brings their own experience to the images, so I try to be as open with mine as those I photograph are with theirs.

Your new book In Passing feels like a natural progression. What does this project mean to you?

In Passing began in 2015, the year I became a mother for the first time, and the same year I lost my own mother to illness. Those two monumental events collided in a way that reshaped me entirely. Two new identities emerged simultaneously: Mother and Motherless. That collision marked the beginning of what would become a long-running, deeply personal visual commentary, nearly a decade in the making.

Initially, making images was a way to anchor myself, a way to bear witness to a reality that felt both awe-inspiring and devastating. It became therapeutic, yes, but also a form of quiet documentation. The work is saturated with the transformation that comes with matrescence, the psychological and physical shifts that redefine who you are. It reminds me of adolescence in that way: a liminal state where the self dissolves and reassembles.

So the work moves beyond the documentary—it’s emotional as much as observational.

Very much so. On one level, In Passing is a visceral record of life at home, of the chaos and intimacy of those early years with small children. But at its core, it’s an exploration of something less tangible: the unspoken emotional terrain of motherhood. There’s a presence that hovers at the edge of memory and consciousness, grief, wonder, exhaustion, love, and that’s what I was trying to trace. It’s not always something you can articulate, but you can feel it shaping you.

The work captures an extraordinary intimacy. Was that intentional?

It wasn’t so much intentional as it was inevitable. The camera became a way for me to see through the fog, of sleep deprivation, of grief, of everyday repetition. It allowed me to hold those moments up to the light, to understand their weight and beauty. There’s a kind of quiet reinvention happening throughout the book, a becoming—just as much as there is a letting go.

What do you hope viewers will take away from In Passing?

I hope they feel seen, or feel invited to see differently. That they slow down and find resonance in the small, ordinary moments. And maybe, that they feel less alone in whatever passage they find themselves navigating.