Maija Nürnberger

Maija is my name but I share that name with my aunt, who my parents found in 1994. It had been 50 years since my grandad left both his daughter and his homeland in the midst of the Second World War.

Mājas is the Latvian word for home. When spoken aloud to an untrained ear, the word sounds incredibly similar to my own name.

I am never sure if someone is talking about home or me.

Maija is a graphic novel about my family, the tumultuous and often forgotten history of the Baltic region and, ultimately, how I have sought to create a relationship to a place from which I feel so disconnected. I use drawing as a means to bring myself closer to a lost family, as an act to record the past and also as a tool to create a possible future. Using my own hand, I am circling the past to a point connecting with my present.