Naturalization

Naturalization is a video and sound work that follows a narrative from three different perspectives across eight episodes. The work recounts the story of C: a web programmer who has joined a post-graduate programme at an art academy in Leipzig and begins photographing camouflaged infrastructure in his local landscape. His timeline is traced over a year, during which not only the development of his project is followed but also his day-to-day life, including his application to become a German citizen.

The work analyses the process of naturalization in both its literal sense (making natural) and its legal definition (acquiring a nationality); the three viewpoints deal simultaneously with the integration of non-natural elements in the natural environment and with the integration of people in society. The narrative draws a link between the identity of nature – and how this is constructed – with a human (dis)connection to place, shaped by migration, sexuality, age and failure.