The Burning of the Mango Leaves

How can you identify with a part of yourself that has been inaccessible for most of your life? In what shape and form do absences influence the perception of the self? These questions lie at the heart of this project.

In The Burning of the Mango Leaves I am exploring my own identity as the child of a German mother and a Malay father. In early 2025, I spent three months with my younger brother at my father's house in Kuching, the capital of the Malay state of Sarawak. He left Germany in 1997, contact had been scarce. The last time we saw him in person was eight years ago when he visited us in Germany. I had been to Malaysia twice, more than a decade ago, my brother just once.

We were brought up and socialised in Germany, although I have always known that I also am part of this place so distant and unknown. Something that defines me yet resists definition. This is what I want to explore. How does the diffuse feeling of belonging to the world of my father shape my own identity? Can this journey help me to come to terms with the in-betweenness of my self?

My binationality is representative of our ever more globalised world, where relations between nations and cultures are expanding, not just on an economical and political level, but also on an individual. Those relations can be problematic, as in the exploitation of developing countries, but also enriching and conductive of forming a deeper understanding for our neighbours.

While rooted in my own story, this project reflects the experiences of many whose identities are formed across borders. In a time of rising nationalism and cultural division, The Burning of the Mango Leaves seeks to remind us that identity is not a fixed construct, but a conversation between places, people, and histories.

I want to develop this project further, travelling back to Sarawak to expand on its themes and visual language through experimenting with layering and material interventions, exploring how the textures of land, vegetation, and everyday rituals can echo the layered nature of identity and belonging.