Migrating Identity

My personal history and the stories of people with similar experiences have inspired my degree project. It revolves around the feeling of belonging when moving from one place to another, adapting to the new environment (e.g. culture, language, etc.), and yet staying in between. It's about the notion of home in the time of migration. I want to capture the ideas of places and identity transformation through materiality. The tree is very human-like living material. I bend the wood, and, while doing so, it follows my moves and adapts to changed conditions. The tension and force create the shape, and the unfolded pieces become traces of my body movements. I see the sculptures from the jeweler´s perspective, the performative and interactive pieces invite the viewer to participate. In my smaller-scale series of work, I continue my materials research narrowing down my investigation from the body to my hands. The pandemic situation increases my awareness of touching and longing for real contact with people. I select a group of found and given to me objects which evoke memories of people and places I have been. By wrapping them into a metallic textile I create imprinted empty space. It becomes a container which questions what is left behind when someone is gone or something is taken away. I place the handprints and the tree rings in parallel. Both are strong identification symbols. The wood rings mark the conditions in which. the tree grows, forming a unique sign language that visually explains the whole history of the tree. Do people´s fingerprints change when they move from one place to another?