ZIAMLIAČKA

The fourth year of forced exile feels like utter depletion. It is a loss of all strength — a state in which I can do nothing but lie down and cry. And then I realized: grounding comes not only from people, but also from the ground beneath our feet. Those who have never lost their soil might not understand the ache of its absence, or the way it holds us.

My mother dug up 225 kilograms of soil from the plot where our ancestral home stood. Now there is only a void. The soil crossed borders under constraint, with great effort. My ritual of intimacy with what is lost is radical: I am regaining a sacred space through enfleurage. I extract the scent from the soil, forcing fat and ethanol to absorb the aroma of what cannot be taken away. This extract is a form of my memory, an attempt to regain the lost peace.

By the end of 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached 123.2 million. My glass bottle is their shared silent prayer for the soil that no longer holds them.