This book surveys the richly layered œuvre of Dawit L. Petros, tracing over two decades of photography and multimedia works that fuse minimalism with postcolonial inquiry. Petros draws on archives, travelogues and oral traditions to connect disparate geographies—particularly the Horn of Africa, Italy and Canada—revealing entangled histories of colonialism, migration and labor. His practice embraces absence and fragmentation: using grids, monochromes and geometric forms he echoes the incomplete nature of historical records while foregrounding suppressed narratives. Influenced by both Western minimalism and global modernisms, Petros retools abstraction to carry the cadences of diasporic memory and vernacular culture. Through photography, installation, film and performance, he interrogates borders, mobility and the aesthetics of empire. This book highlights Petros’ ongoing commitment to storytelling as a fluid, migratory process—one that reimagines modernity through unexpected encounters, resonances and the enduring possibilities of movement.

Co-published with Scotiabank Photography Award, Toronto