Stela Csizmazia

White Room is an installation exploring family heritage, multicultural identity, and the emotional burdens passed through generations. At the centre of this piece lies a bed wrapped in bedsheets passed down from my grandmother and mother, holding their traces: blood, sweat, and tears - as a physical archive of our shared history. Stones collected from important family homes and significant places in my life sit beneath the sheets, symbolising the weight and pressure of carrying multiple cultural identities.

I was inspired by my personal experience of living between cultures and feeling the tension of belonging and not belonging simultaneously. I wanted to highlight how identity can be both comforting and heavy, and how the pressure to fit into clear cultural categories can feel sterile and restrictive, like being trapped in a clinical "white room“.

The production involved physically embedding meaningful objects into domestic materials. I hand-built the bed frame, intentionally breaking and then welding it back together, leaving visible scars to symbolise the deep wounds from imperfect process of healing by reconciling different parts of our identities. Underneath the sheets, a hidden video plays a recording of me weeping, emphasizing personal vulnerability beneath a calm surface; while other piece of cloth hides a performance of me wrestling a pillow, becoming a quiet battlefield. A bedside table built from a gabion basket becomes both burial and container for my soul.

White Room invites viewers to consider their own hidden stories, unspoken burdens, and the emotional impact of belonging to multiple worlds. The bed, usually a symbol of rest and comfort, here becomes a place of tension. White Room aims not to provide answers but to create space for reflection on the complexities of identity, the unseen emotional weights we carry, and the delicate balance between holding on and letting go.