Nature as your home

Interview Alphabets of Flesh

Meryem Meghraoua was born in Bulgaria. She lives in Amsterdam, where she works as a visual artist.

Meryem: “My mother is Bulgarian, and my father is from Algeria. My maternal grandfather was a sea captain, so he travelled a lot. When he became ill, he could no longer sail long distances and was offered a job in the port of Algeria. My mother joined her family’s move there wanting to go to the art academy. In Algeria she converted to Islam and later met my father.

My parents commuted between Algeria and Bulgaria for years. I was born in Bulgaria, but pretty soon after we moved to Paris. That is where my sister was born, too. All my childhood memories of France were fond, but I know my parents struggled with society. When my mother did her master’s, for example, she was told that she would not graduate if she did not take off her hijab.

When I was eight, we moved to the north of England. My parents thought they had more freedom to live the life they wanted there. It took me a few months to be able to communicate and understand English. Then I developed a funny Yorkshire-French-Bulgarian accent. I remember very well that I felt ‘different’ in England for the first time in my life. I longed for a community to belong to, like we had in France. We also still watched French television and listened to French music. It was not until I got older that I began to appreciate England. When I was twenty-one, I moved to London because I felt the need to surround myself with more people who are both Muslim and artists.”

Feeling at home

“In Bulgaria you can find the house where I feel most at home, probably because I was born there. Relatives live there and the interior still is exactly the same. It feels like a safe cocoon. However, when I go outside in Bulgaria, it can sometimes feel hostile being viewed as a Muslim, because I am not initially viewed as Bulgarian.

Every time I do not feel well, I try to go out to sea. Whether in Bulgaria, England or the Netherlands, swimming in the sea makes me feel most myself and free. I also feel very comfortable in Amsterdam, where I have been living for several years. Here is nothing that stands in the way of my development and lifestyle. Sometimes I go to Paris because of family and certain nostalgic memories, but there I feel much more hostility because of how people talk about immigration, religion and race.”

Nature

“When she first moved into her own place, my mother took a plant from my grandfather’s garden. Every time we moved, we took that plant with us. And when I moved to the Netherlands, she gave me a cutting of the plant. It is now in my apartment, as a souvenir of our garden back home.

My Bulgarian roots have given me serenity and a connection with nature. My mother taught me the healing effects of herbs and certain Bulgarian traditions that I try to maintain, such as wearing a ‘martinitsa’ (bracelet) from the first day of March until you see the first blossom, to welcome spring. Many traditions that I have been given are also connected to faith, because my parents are both Muslim.

Spirituality and connection to nature are very important to me, both in my daily life and in my visual arts. Everywhere I go, I take a stone with me as a souvenir. I also make paint from stones. When I was little, my father once said to me: ‘Faith is like waves that beat on stones and smoothen them over time’. I think that is beautiful. Stones have seen and experienced a lot and have been around for ages.”