"I have fond memories growing up, of sitting beside my dad on quiet evenings as he played classic Westerns. I was captivated by the sweeping landscapes, the heroic cowboys, and the tales offrontier adventure. But even then, something about the way Native Americans were portrayed didn t sit right. They were often cast as villains or reduced to silent, faceless figures rarely the heroes of their own stories.
Just before the pandemic hit in early 2020, I took a trip to the United States and unexpectedly ended up in Round Valley. I was drawn in by the landscape and the people, but looking back, I realize I didn t yet have the perspective or understanding to engage with the place fully. I left, unsure if I d return. Years later, while watching Killers of the Flower Moon, something shifted inside me. I reached out. I came back.
Round Valley, where this work is rooted, holds a painful and complex history. In 1856, it became the site of the Nome Cult Reservation (later renamed the Round Valley Indian Reservation) one of the oldest and largest in California. Thirteen distinct tribes were forcibly relocated here from across the state, many through a brutal journey known as California s Trail of Tears. These tribes with different languages, beliefs and ways of life, were made to coexist in a confined and often hostile space.
What followed was a long history of massacres, land theft, boarding schools, and systemic efforts to erase Native culture a pattern echoed across the United States. But history doesn t just live in the past. It endures in memory, in trauma, and in the names of those still missing due to violence against Native people and those who dare to live in accordance with ancestral beliefs.
This work amplifies the voices of those whose roots run deep in the land and traditions of their homeland people who have lived through changes so profound that their ancestral places are now scarcely recognisable; It tells of songs still sung, sacred lands walked again, and youth relearning dances once outlawed. It is a story of what has endured. It speaks to the reclamation of lineages nearly lost but never forgotten."
Cosimo Campagna is a documentary photographer born and raised in southern Italy, now based in the southwest of England. He moved to the UK at 21 to pursue photography, and in 2024, he graduated with first-class honours in Photography from the University of Plymouth.
Cosimo’s work centres on people and place, blending storytelling with intimate portraiture. Deeply inspired by the sea, travel, and human connection, his images explore identity, memory, and resilience—often shaped by the emotional texture of landscape.
He works with both digital and analogue mediums, favouring medium-format film where depth and tone serve the story. Known for his use of natural light, Cosimo creates visually rich, emotionally resonant work in both black-and-white and colour.
