Mapping the Self

This series of multi-layered panels serves as a new form of documentation: both an objective record of the physical "folds" and structures of the city, and a deeply personal map of an artist finding their place within them.

This process is inseparable from my identity as an artist who began their professional practice following emigration. Being an outsider means occupying a unique position: that of a "fully grown-up" observer who is simultaneously as naïve as a child, forced to learn the visual and tactile language of a new landscape from scratch.

Using analogue photography and the frottage technique, I want to capture the "material traces" and urban textures that are usually overlooked: the gravel, the concrete, and the grit of Berlin. My goal is to explore how these physical patterns can be translated into a visual language that reconstructs the history and everyday existence of a place.

Combining analogue images with "urban haikus" (short multi-language interventions) reflects the emotional friction of navigating an unknown territory. It is an exploration of how identity is reconstructed when the familiar linguistic structures of one's consciousness collide with a raw, foreign, and historically charged environment.