I feel like this project connects to a much larger question of who we are as a nation, how people come here, and what the forces are that bring people here.
– Julia
Julia Cumes is a South African-born photographer and visual storyteller based on Cape Cod. Her work explores themes of identity, belonging, cultural resilience, and environmental justice, with a strong focus on community-centered narratives. With a background in photojournalism, she has documented climate change–related disasters and their impacts on communities, from Cape Town’s water crisis to hurricanes, wildfires and flooding in the United States, alongside long-term projects on women’s empowerment in South Asia, community resilience in East Africa and more. Julia was named the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod’s “2024 Artist of the Year,” and her images have been featured in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally.
With MISI, Julia completed a portrait collection titled Invisible Threads: Portraits and Stories of our Global Neighbors, in collaboration with Lipe Borges. The project documents immigrant experiences on Cape Cod as part of the region’s cultural and economic fabric. Julia worked with Daylight Books to convert the portraits into a book as a way of overcoming the accessibility challenges that come with a single physical gallery space – this transportable Invisible Threads collection will be released in Fall 2026.