Belonging

The Story

Belonging is a contemporary visual artwork that explores the complex relationship between identity, cultural heritage, collective memory, and belonging through the experience of migration between Bulgaria and Turkey. Drawing on life shaped between two countries and cultures, the work examines how origins influence personal identity and how the past is carried across generations. Migration and displacement are presented not merely as geographical transitions, but as transformations in the relationship between individuals, their histories, and the places they inhabit. Memories, cultural ties, and connections to ancestral roots complicate the boundaries of belonging, raising questions about where we come from, where we live, and where we feel at home. BELONGING suggests that identity cannot be confined to a single place or culture; rather, it is continually reshaped through memory, experience, and intergenerational transmission. Situated at the intersection of personal and cultural memory, the artwork reflects on the emotional traces of migration and the human search for a place to call one's own. It invites viewers to reconsider belonging not simply as an attachment to a location, but as a dynamic relationship with the past, cultural heritage, and one's sense of self.