Every day, across the world, survivors are left with the possessions of a loved one who has passed away, a lifetime of objects holding their secrets and no one left to tell their story. What if sorting through those objects revealed a person different from the one you knew? You can never ask them why. Never know the truth. Maybe the truth is that some questions only have answers that come from within.

I made “Belongings” as a way to work through the posthumous mystery of my mother, who was deported by the Nazis as a Jew but owned a 1953 book called “Keep A True Lent.” Among her things, I found a silver filigree six pointed star necklace and a tiny statuette of a praying Mary she had kept by her bed. She was my closest relationship in life. I thought I knew her.

“Belongings” is an immersive memory box that uses the medium of virtual reality to bring an embodied immediacy to one woman’s life story. The viewer interacts with her personal photographs, documents, artwork, and possessions in an intimate space where time present and time past coexist in an interactive biography.