To celebrate the launch of TIME’s new multimedia project – 100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time – we asked leaders in a number of fields, from technology to the arts to business, to share the single photograph that most influenced their lives. Purchase the 100 Photographs book now.

My mother took this photo in 1998. She had left Poland with her mother when she was 11 years old. This was her first time back in 24 years. She had boldly, bravely taken her three kids with her. My sister was 11 years old, the same age Mum was when she’d left. I like how the picture mirrors how Mum must have felt when she moved to Australia but instead shows us in her home country feeling a similar sense of strangeness in this unfamiliar place.

Mia Wasikowska is a trained ballerina and actress.