Project



At Thealit I’d like to explore the taste of home in potential food performances, tasting challenges and sweet sour meetings. I want to get closer to the understanding of home and preserve an idea of home in jars where the processes of fermentation do their tradition and preservation of storytelling. My mother and grandmother taught me how to preserve fruits and vegetables in jars. What defines the taste of home and how can I pickle it? What does preserving mean in the context of home? Which elements of taste has embraced us for generations? In which way do geographical conditions and (colonial) history influence the taste or the idea of preservation of home?
Why do we find it so difficult to accept the plural of home? "He who says home takes on more." (M. Frisch) Through my history of Russian-Germans, I take on the history of migration, former colonial policy, the Soviet Union, and Germany. Home(s) are both granted and denied to me. Bilingualism becomes a problem of identity, and the historical and geographical location of Central Asia makes it difficult for me to narrow myself down to one origin. I repeatedly feel that finding home isn’t freedom. Do I define my home, or is it created by others? How much of my home as a second-generation migrant is within me? Where do I belong? Are my memories my own or those of my parents, since they left everything behind and nothing remained but memories? Am I a stranger here or a stranger there?

Thealit studio becomes for a moment a place for contemplation and elaboration. When the concept of home experiences a crisis, a crisis of exclusion, deportations, military invasions, historical patriotism... then me, as a person who cannot find a home, though having too many homes, though not being homeless; I must find a voice through the diverse tastes of homes, perhaps just to discover that I want to do some fasting.