the Burning of the Mango Leaves

How can I identify with a part of myself that remained hidden for most of my life? How do absences and the longing for memories that never existed shape one’s self-perception? What other life might have been possible?

In my project the Burning of the Mango Leaves, I attempt to approach these questions. It accompanies the first extended journey my younger brother and I undertook to visit our father and our Malaysian family. Our father 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. Both times were limited to a week, just enough time to get used to the humid heat, not nearly enough time to understand. A quick wave hello and goodbye, a small glimpse.

This time, we spent three months in Kuching with the aim of getting to know our father, our aunts, uncles, and cousins, the country, and also ourselves more deeply. Having grown up in Germany, we had little contact with him and with our Malaysian roots. A part of who we are, which is yet unfamiliar to us. Something that defines us while evading any clear definition. A diffuse sense of belonging to the unfamiliar world of our father, which we wanted to better understand.

Through moments in which the unfamiliar dissolves into the familiar, and through an sometimes unreal observation of my surroundings and my family, I try to address the central questions of my project and to imagine the possibilities of memories that were never lived.