Megan Lucille Boettcher's raw performance confronts the weight of the material and emotional things we carry with us when we migrate through the world. 'The things I've Carried With Me', performed at belink's Seed & Feed exhibition. left the unsuspecting audience in utter awe of a life so untied to material belongings yet so emotionally intertwined with her surrounding places and cultures. This is not to say that the artist expressed a particular emotional dependence but rather that Megan's performance showed how reliant we are on people's kindness and acceptance when moving through new cultures into the unknown. The artist lives a life of uncertainty, moving from place to place as geography, finance and visas permit. She tells the story of material and emotional weight carried with her, both voluntarily and involuntarily.

The performance spanned over almost two hours creating an unprecedented atmosphere for such a personal piece. The small gallery space in Itaewon, Seoul was filled with, about 15 people lining all edges and corners of the room, while in the middle lay Megan's entire life's belongings packed up in a hardshell suitcase and a backpack topped by a couple of loose jackets. Dressed in fabrics and textiles sewn together in a cascading black skirt, Megan started opening up and unloading all of the contents of her carefully assembled bags. From clothing, to artworks and souvenirs, Megan unraveled experiences from living as a moving artist without a fixed home; living from those belongings, but more importantly from the cultures and people around her; recounting the personal attachment she felt towards a pair of shoes and her first art pieces alike.

Nearing the bottom of the suitcase, Megan veered from the origin behind each item that physically lay in her wide open suitcase, to the emotional traumas, connections and lessons that have followed her on her artistic journey. The artist began undressing, revealing black waves of ink that flowed over her chest and back, reaching to her arms and legs. Along with the things we carefully fold and stack and shove to fill the corners of our suitcases, we carry emotional weights that follow us in their various and unexpected forms. Megan washed away the paint covering her naked body, asking for members of the audience to help her reach the spots on her back. At this point in the performance that small gallery in Itaewon had become a closed space to which the outside happenings seemed to fade into the irrelevant as all the people on the inside, tall and short, gathered on the floor sharing an intimate space with the artist rawly displaying the joys and hardships of her migration.