A series of work I started to make as an Artist in Residence in Berlin that was continued in NYC as an artist in residence at Con Artist Collective Gallery in 2017.

“Heimat” is a German word that denotes the relationship of a human being toward a certain spatial social unit. It is often expressed with such terms as “home” or “homeland” but it has been alleged that the word has no English equivalent. The specific aspects of Heimat—love and attachment to homeland—left the idea vulnerable to easy assimilation into the fascist "blood and soil" literature of the National Socialists. It was conceived by the Nazis that the Volk community is deeply rooted in the land of their Heimat. The Third Reich was regarded at the deepest level as the sacred Heimat of the unified Volk community. Those who were taken to Nazi concentration camps were those who were officially declared by the SS to be "enemies of the volk community" and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the heimat.”

I traveled to the butcher shop my Great Grandparent’s owned to prove to myself that I was in fact German, and that connection to my culture truly existed in the form of a feeling I had trouble describing with language. I imagined myself experiencing an overwhelming presence of ghostly acceptance and admiration from my ancestors, that translated into an enlightenment within myself. The current owners kept the integrity of the business, however, owned a previously Nazi headquarters property, which ensued an air of immorality. Maybe I victimized myself, but I felt they were uninterested in me, and it was possibly more fear and intimidation than Anti-Semitism, but I wanted to accuse them of hate. I was obsessed with them and I despised them at the same time; they inadvertently betrayed me, but we had a connection, even if they were to deny it. What came of the meeting was not closure, but confusion, and stirred up a need to portray them as small and cruel and selfish. I was and am consumed by the idea of them and the idea that this property that was taken away from my family, and by proxy, me.