…so I wove myself a nest. One I can carry with me.
…actually, my real “nest” is my little Harvest backpack. The one I grabbed when I left the dorm on the first day of the war. A few things that suddenly became my whole life. They’re still with me — quiet objects that give me a sense of home.
…I wanted to make this metaphor real — to weave a proper nest and turn it into a backpack. It’s heavy, almost ten kilos, made of branches and sticks that press into my shoulders. Fragile. Awkward. Hard to wear — just like emigration isn’t comfortable, just like living knowing that war is happening in my real home.
…and yet, I can’t just take this nest off. It stays with me, like the experience itself.
…these photos are documentation of a performance. I spent a whole day living normally without removing the nest from my shoulders. Doing everyday things in Neuss, the city I’ve been living in since the full-scale invasion began.
…for me, this work is about home as I feel it now: not a fixed place, not material things, but something I carry with me always. A home turned into movement, into readiness, into memories and people, into the weight of what I can’t separate from myself — and at the same time, into the freedom to move forward.