This piece delves into my experience as an immigrant, exploring the burden of bureaucratic hurdles, and personal dilemmas, through eating as a metaphor for dehumanization and shared humanity. The work was showcased as part of the group exhibition ‘Welcome to the UK’ at the Ugly Duck Gallery, March 2024.

A brief preview of the video performance, which fails to capture the daunting and uncomfortable 20+ minute watch of the entire act and with that bring closer to the viewer the lengthy and unsettling process of immigration.
'You've Made Your Plate, Now Eat It,' is a video performance encapsulating the complex emotions and personal impact of being a visa-holding immigrant in the UK. The piece involves eating an English breakfast while deliberately restricting the mouth, neck, and arms—rendering it nearly impossible to consume food. The video was displayed on a TV screen alongside the clothing worn during the performance and was housed in one of the three suitcases I brought to London when moving in, in 2015.
The piece is looking at immigration under a visa, from various different angles:
- the persistent stereotype of the 'greedy immigrant’
-the lived paradox of being given an opportunity for a ‘better life’ almost impossible to obtain, due to numerous bureaucratic obstacles
-the lived paradox of making a choice to put oneself into a disadvantaged position leading to self-inflicted inequality and discrimination and the constant dilemma of ‘can I complain about this, if I chose to do it?’

This is what inspired the title of the piece:'You’ve Made Your Plate, Now Eat It' is a play on the saying: You’ve made your bed, now lie in it and the Macedonian version of it ‘Како ќе си надробиш, така ќе си сркаш’, which when literally translated means: The way you make your food is how you will eat it.Reflecting on the visa journey, 'You've Made Your Plate, Now Eat It' seeks to evoke emotions tied to critical junctures in the Visa application processes, that can feel like being reduced to a set of requirements rather than acknowledged as an individual. Eating, a fundamental physiological need, serves as a metaphor for shared humanity and restricting it - as the dehumanizing aspects of bureaucratic processes. The piece, aims to revisit past experiences, process emotions, and shed light on otherwise invisible struggles.



'You've Made Your Plate, Now Eat It' at Ugly Duck Gallery, London, March 2024