Artist Statement eng.] 

 Language contains metaphors that draw natural parallels between humans and nature. One of the most persistent is the image of “roots” to describe origin and identity. To take root suggests stability, settlement, and belonging; to be rootless or uprooted implies instability and loss. Yet in contemporary life, even plants are uprooted, transported, replanted, and made to adapt to new environments. Human lives are no different.

 My work begins with questions of movement and settlement, origin and adaptation. Borrowing from ecology, the concept of the “realized niche” describes how every organism negotiates its position within constraints—through competition, coexistence, and environmental conditions. Similarly, migrants leave their place of birth and must redefine their position within a new social and spatial context. I ask: Where is my realized niche? How do I claim space within a chosen environment? Since moving to Germany in 2013, my place of origin has often been treated as the key to understanding who I am. The German word Heimat—commonly translated as “hometown” or “homeland”—extends beyond geography. Historically shaped by loss, longing, and displacement, it has functioned as a space of memory and emotional projection. Today, however, stripped of its romantic aura, Heimat operates largely as a political category that differentiates nationality and origin. Birthplace, residence, and homeland no longer coincide, and identity is no longer anchored to a single territory. Heimat is not destiny but contingency—constructed within shifting networks of relationships. Through sculpture and installation, I explore the nomadic condition of contemporary life and the relationships between people, space, and nature. Natural elements—roots, plants, ecological systems—serve as metaphors for emotional states and transitional phases. Inflatable, mobile, or temporary forms reflect instability and resilience, expansion and contraction. They embody a tension between fragility and persistence.

My practice engages with the longing for the right to appropriate space and the desire for settlement. Rather than understanding origin as a fixed essence, I approach identity as something continuously negotiated in the present. The question is not only where we come from, but how we live—and how we choose to live. My work becomes a process of defining origin, defending one’s ecological niche, and asserting the right to exist and breathe within a chosen space.