IUS SANGUINIS / IUS DOMICILII
STATELESS GROUND
What happens when the country where you were born no longer legally recognizes you as its citizen?
Ius Sanguinis / Ius Domicilii – Stateless Ground explores citizenship not only as a legal status but as a structure that shapes identity, belonging, and the idea of home. I was born in Lithuania and acquired citizenship through ius sanguinis – the right of blood. After migrating to Norway, I later obtained Norwegian citizenship through ius domicilii – the right of residence. Because Lithuania restricts dual citizenship, this transition also meant losing my Lithuanian citizenship.
This legal shift created an in-between condition – a kind of stateless ground – where belonging is no longer defined by a single state.
The project unfolds through painting, drawing, text and installation. Soil from my gardens in Vilnius and Oslo becomes a central material in the works, appearing as pigment, surface and installation. In some works the soils meet and gradually merge, suggesting how physical landscapes may connect even when political borders divide.
The paintings also draw on the colors of passports – burgundy and coral red – alongside fragments of legal language and childhood expressions such as “All My Doves, Come Home” and “We Be of One Blood, Ye and I.” Bread and salt appear as recurring elements, referencing traditions of hospitality, memory and the embodied experience of home.
Together, the works reflect on how identity is negotiated between law and lived experience, between origin and residence, and within the shifting ground between countries, languages and systems of belonging.
