Masha - Mariia

This project is a personal reflection on motherhood and the gradual loss of a shared cultural code. It documents the quiet metamorphosis of a child immigrant, Masha, into a German citizen, Mariia. The transition is driven by the formative influence of German educational and social factors. While her "can-be-German" appearance and linguistic fluency allow for seamless integration, her heritage survives only in a private archive: Orthodox icons, old photographs, and a mother tongue she can no longer write in. This project investigates how the structures of a new society inevitably reshape the subject, leading to a "slipping away" of the shared identity we once held. As a mother, I observe this process with a complex duality: gratitude for her successful adaptation and a profound sadness for the cultural distance growing between us. In witnessing her transformation, I realize that she has been fully claimed by an environment to which I will never entirely belong. 


2024 - ongoing