Lost and Found in Migration by Elena Karpilova

There is a cult early work by Rem Koolhaas, the renowned Dutch architectural theorist and practitioner, titled "Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture" [1] an (anti-)utopian architectural manifesto created in 1972 together with Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe Zenghelis. It imagines a radical architectural intervention in London — a massive linear structure, a kind of architectural wall or strip, cutting through the city. This structure is known as the “Strip of Voluntary Imprisonment.” People enter it of their own free will, agreeing to submit to strict rules in exchange for order, stimulation, and meaning in their lives. The manifesto reflects one of the central themes that would go on to shape Koolhaas’s work — architecture as a system of ideological control.


Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, Zoe Zenghelis. Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture: The Strip (Aerial Perspective). 1972.


A similar idea is explored by Austrian architect Teo Deutinger in his book Walls and Fences[2], where he expands the notion of spatial boundaries into a cartographic critique — presenting them as the beginning of the end of free human existence, as land is continuously divided and redefined. According to Deutinger, thousands of years ago, humanity began enclosing itself within territories — a process that continues to this day.

I held the first exhibition of the l’étrangère project in my own apartment as part of the jewellery biennial in Lisbon 2024, inviting jewellers with migration experience to participate. My modest rented flat, as an immigrant myself, felt like the most authentic context for the project. Later, I decided to recreate it during Munich Jewellery Week 2025. But while working on this, I found myself in a dual state of freedom and restriction — a paradox that eventually led to a reformulation of the project and the creation of the virtual exhibition Lost in Migration, which I will describe below.


l’étrangère project happened during Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial in 2024 in the flat of Elena Karpilova.


After leaving Belarus in 2022, I arrived in peaceful, freedom-loving, and slow-paced Portugal. I received a two-year residence permit, but in 2024, just as I needed to renew it, the Portuguese immigration system collapsed. In a country of ten million, by May 2024, over 400,000 residency and citizenship applications had been submitted [3]. The official processing time of three months stretched into years.

Since December 2024, my residence permit expired, and I became unable to leave the country. On one hand, I was safe, free, and in a calm environment — something I could not say about my homeland, Belarus. On the other hand, I became trapped within the borders of Portugal, with no clear timeline or resolution in sight. I know many similar stories, and I understood that mine was just a drop in the ocean — I needed to be patient.

At some point, I began recalling art and architecture projects that explore the relativity of freedom in space, the idea of safety turning into restriction, and the concept of home as both shelter and enclosure — especially when boundaries are imposed involuntarily or accepted voluntarily. I recalled these projects in search of inspiration and an answer to the question of what to do next with the possible cancellation of l’étrangère.



Global Cultural Context of (un)Free Space

The first work that came to mind was Cage Piece by South Korean artist Tehching Hsieh, who, from 1978 to 1979, locked himself in a cage inside his own New York studio for exactly one year. He had almost no communication with the outside world and received food from a friend. The performance also referenced the artist’s undocumented status in the U.S. at the time: although he was physically inside the country—just as he was inside his studio—he was effectively imprisoned, unable to move freely due to bureaucratic limitations.


Tehching Hsieh. Cage Piece. One Year Performance. 1978–79. Life images. Photo: Cheng Wei Kuong. © 1979 Tehching Hsieh, New York.


Another, more contemporary South Korean artist, Do Ho Suh, whose solo exhibition is currently on view at Tate Modern until October 19, 2025, creates delicate, life-sized textile installations of homes that can be folded and transported anywhere in the world. One of his most touching works is Rubbing/Loving: Seoul Home (2013–2022), a 1:1 replica of his childhood home, a traditional Korean hanok built by his parents in the 1970s.


Do Ho Suh, Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home, 2013-2022. Graphite on mulberry paper, aluminium. Installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. © Do Ho Suh. Photo: Jessica Maurer.


As I mentioned earlier, architecture is a form of control over people. The space we call home is not only sentimental or comforting — physically, it is a space defined by walls. And walls, by nature, are boundaries and limits. Taking this idea further: the Great Wall of China, the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the Korean DMZ wall, the Berlin Wall — none of these are associated with freedom.
In the 20th century, the revolutionary architect Le Corbusier went even further and put us all into "cells" — apartments — making our homes as utilitarian as possible. He designed spaces tailored precisely to the dimensions of the average person, placing us in restrained “boxes” of multi-story housing blocks.

Sometimes — rarely — a person chooses to be limited by space. One example is the White U House in Tokyo, Japan, designed by Toyo Ito for his sister after her husband died of cancer. She asked Ito to create a home for herself and her two daughters that would shield them from the outside world. The family lived there for 21 years. The house offered them a sense of seclusion, a retreat from reality, while also bringing the family closer together. The home “lived its life” and gave the family everything they needed at the time. In 1997, the house was demolished.


White U (House), Tokyo, Japan, by Toyo Ito, photo: Koji Taki


Luxury is when a person chooses whether or not to be free. On September 8, 2020, Belarusian activist, politician, and musician Maria Kalesnikava was abducted by Belarusian security forces who tried to forcibly remove her from the country to stop her political work. Right at the border, Maria tore up her Belarusian passport, asserting her freedom of choice and refusing to leave her country, fully aware of the risks. Without valid documents, they couldn’t deport her, and she remained in Belarus. In 2021, a Belarusian court sentenced her to 11 years in a general-regime penal colony. [4]


 A Simple Accident (also known as It Was Just an Accident), Jafar Panahi, 2025. 


This deep devotion to homeland echoes the story of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was placed under house arrest in 2010 and confined for six years. Despite the restrictions, he continued to make powerful, emotionally resonant films about life in Iran, directing remotely and giving instructions to assistants. His arrest later evolved into a travel ban. Yet his films traveled the world, appearing at international festivals and winning awards. In 2025, his film It Was Just an Accident received the Palme d'Or for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. Panahi attended the ceremony — his first time leaving Iran in 15 years.



Jewellery Context

In January 2025, while walking past a magazine stand in Lisbon, I noticed a cover of Umbigo magazine featuring a photo by Adrian Paci. It showed migrants standing still on an airplane boarding ramp, as if trapped in a drained River Styx, with no current to carry them forward or back. That moment inspired me to launch a project focused specifically on the stories and reflections of jewelers on the themes of home and migration — in a virtual format — and to call it Lost in Migration. This photo by Adrian Paci (with the artist’s permission) I used for the exhibition poster.


Magazine Umbigo with a photo of Adrian Paci on the cover: Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, 2007.



These are the stories of jewelers whose works you may have seen — but whose personal journeys you probably haven't heard. Maybe you've never spoken with these jewelers, never heard their voices, perhaps never even seen their faces. These are stories of emigration, of home — its loss, search, and redefinition. Stories of how jewelry became a vessel for these feelings and life changes. Stories of how one can be lost in migration, and how one can be found — through discovering a language to translate that experience into jewelry.

For the project, I invited 14 jewelers to share their personal stories of migration — or the migration stories of their families. I streamed their narratives online throughout the Munich Jewellery Week, allowing virtual visitors to drop in at any time. I could pause the stream to engage in live conversation with attendees. The exhibition moved from a confined physical architectural space into a virtual one — a space that, while not without limitations, is far more accessible from anywhere in the world.

Below are a few videos from the jewelers who took part in the project.


I had seen Danni Schwaag’s work a long time ago, and when I came up with the idea for the virtual project Lost in Migration, we decided to have a video call. Danni lives and works in Germany.  Her personal story isn’t connected to migration. But her artistic approach in one of her series is connected to a rather unexpected, unconventional symbol of place and home—soap. Danni collects small soaps from different places — hotels, airplanes — some are gifted to her by friends, and others she finds at flea markets: old, nostalgic soaps still in their original packaging.
Soap, for Danni, is a symbol of place that disappears, a slipping memory — and even literally, it’s an object that slips from your hands.


Lost in Migration: Danni Schwaag.


During the pandemic, Danni organized an open call, inviting people to send her soaps along with the story of where the soap came from — the place, the country. Today, Danni has around 50 soaps in her collection. The number is always changing, because she turns some of the soaps into jewelry. Not every soap gets used — if it comes in its original packaging, a little box, she keeps it intact. “It stays how it is, because I think I cannot make it more beautiful,” the artist says.

For the project, Danni recorded a video of herself washing her hands. I used this video between the personal stories of migration of other jewelers, as a transition — a moment of pause and cleansing.


Laila Marie Costa created a video for the project, which she recorded in one of the rooms at the DIVA Museum in Antwerp while in residence there. In this classroom, an old world map was hanging on the blackboard — it became the starting point for her video performance, in which Laila reflects on her family’s migration history as well as her own experience of emigration.

She also joined the livestream from Australia, where she and her partner were housesitting in Bendigo, Victoria, located on the unceded lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung and the Taungurung Peoples of the Kulin Nation. The town was formed during the gold rush in 1851, transforming the area into a major boomtown. “I’ve never lived on land that was former gold fields and experienced first-hand the devastation of the land, the lack of topsoil, and constant dust everywhere. It was such dry, depleted, unnourished land — once a lush green forest before colonization,”  Laila observes.



Lost In Migration: Laila Marie Costa.


Since November 2024, she and her partner have been practicing a nomadic lifestyle through housesitting, and as of July 2025, they’ve stayed in 14 different homes across Australia. One of the most memorable places they lived was a farm in Hamilton, Victoria, situated on the unceded lands of the Gunditjmara, Tjapwurong, and Bunganditj peoples. The sheep farm was home to about 12,000 merino sheep and Angus cattle. “I had never lived in such an isolated place before. I had to use Starlink to connect to the internet,” Laila recalls.


Esteban Erosky’s story is deeply connected to the migrations of several generations of his family across continents. Esteban shared archival photographs from his family history. Many of his works are centered around memories — and the loss of them. “Migration always brings pain, but also hope,” he says.


Lost in Migration: Esteban Erosky.


You may have heard of the platform J is for Jewellery, curated by Juan Harnie, who regularly organizes exhibitions and has a collection of around 300 pieces from all over the world. For Lost in Migration, Juan shared a touching story about how, as a one-year-old born in Colombia, he was adopted by a Belgian family, and how his jewelry pieces are deeply connected to the notions of family and memory.


Lost in Migration: Juan Harnie.


You may know Daniel Jirkovský from the relatively recently opened Studio Wearhouse in Amsterdam, of which he is one of the founders. I first met him during the final presentation of the MASieraad graduates in the summer of 2024, where he presented The N Project, which explores how borders and war can dramatically and irreversibly shape the fate of families.

The starting point for Daniel’s research was his own family: his great-grandfather was German and his great-grandmother was Czech, and after World War II, they were forcibly separated. As he delved deeper into the subject, Daniel expanded his project into a broader narrative about the global issue of discrimination in border regions, focusing in particular on the German-Czechoslovakian context. The jewelry project evolved into a pilgrimage that Daniel undertook across the territory he was researching.

The N Project centers on the early post-war political situation in Czechoslovakia, specifically the German-speaking population of the Sudetenland. After the war, because of their language and ethnicity, they became targets of violence and were expelled from lands their families had lived on for generations. These events were systematically erased from public memory in Czechoslovakia — and even today, they remain largely unknown or deliberately forgotten.


Lost in Migration: Daniel Jirkovský.



I would like to thank all the participants of both projects,l’étrangère and Lost in Migration, who had the courage to share their stories with visitors and viewers:
Ana Escobar Saavedra, Anastasia Rydlevskaya, Helen Clara Hemsley, Into Niilo, Julieta Ruiz Argañaraz and Maria Motyleva, Nastasia Fomina, Sharareh Aghaei, Tamara Marbl Joka, Tzu-Yun Hung, Laila Marie Costa, Evgenia Elanic, Esteban Erosky, Juan Harnie, Vershali Jain, Daniel Jirkovský, Militsa Milenkova, Danni Schwaag, Nioosha Vaezzadeh Angoshtarsaz.



Notes:
[1]: Koolhaas, Rem, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp & Zoe Zenghelis. Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture. Casabella, no. 378 (June 1973): 42–45.
[2]: Deutinger, Theo. Walls and Fences Handbook of Tyranny. Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2018. ISBN 978‑3‑03778‑534‑8.
[3]: https://www.portugalresident.com/aima-tackles-400000-strong-residency-request-backlog-rejecting-over-100000/
[4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/09/belarusian-opposition-leaders-maryia-kalesnikava-and-maksim-znak-sentenced-to-10-and-11-years-respectively/
 

About the author

Elena Karpilova was born in Belarus in 1987. Since 2022, she has lived in Lisbon, Portugal. From 2005–2009, she studied art at Glebov Art College as fine artist (Belarus); from 2010–2016 she studied at the University of Culture and Arts (Belarus) as a comparative art critic. She is an art critic, an artist, and the head of an interdisciplinary project for children and youth, the Architectural Thinking School for Children, which now works in Portugal with families of migrants. “Due to a lack of education in the jewelry field in Belarus," says Karpilova, "I've been studying the subject on my own." Writer, content maker for ArtJewelryForum. Member of PIN association, Portugal. Member AGC (Association of Contemporary Jewellery), Italy. Finalist of the AGC Italy - Association of Contemporary Jewellery's Maria Cristina Bergesio Award 2024. Participant of Lisbon Jewelry Biennial 2024 as curator of L’étrangère project. 

Website: https://elenakarpilova.com/
Instagram: @karpilova