These talks I wish I had. These questions I would never dare to ask

In-depth research questioning what is passed on in the family, what remains from our origin and how to identify with it. Being the only one in my family to have curly hair, I started to question my identity.

Nowadays, we are facing a universal question of our origin, searching for an answer about our roots. Contrary to the common preconception we all are a mix of nationalities. This raises the question of identity: what I am? I am my nationality or my DNA? I am what my ancestors were and thus, who were they? The question of identity is inherent in any search for an origin.

With the research-driven mindset of a geologist, I investigated my family’s archive: tangible artefacts, photographs, letters, train tickets and the like. I examined the memories of my relatives by involving my close family members. My parents answered a list of questions in my ancestors’ place from which I invented fictional exchanges with them: what would they have passed on to me? I attempt to be closer to my ancestors, however, the transmission is done by close relatives and that is often the only source of knowledge, the rest is in the imagination. This research through the “fact”, the artefacts, and the “fiction”, the descendants, outlines the endeavour to delineate a person’s identity becomes a reflection upon a reflection.