Rituals of Return is an artistic research project and master's thesis exploring how artistic practice functions as survival, processing, and self-orientation in exile. Through documentary film, the project investigates what happens to experiences that never find language, and whether art can offer paths to healing when conventional support is unavailable or inaccessible.

The project is rooted in a personal inheritance — the author was born in Sweden to parents who fled Iran — and grew out of over five years of documentary work with people navigating life after migration. It asks what it costs when the practices that hold a person together are not recognised as legitimate by the systems around them.

The thesis develops a methodology of proximity, trust, and a listening visual language, draws on semiotic perspectives to examine how place functions as a meaning-bearing system, and situates itself within a lineage including Trinh T. Minh-ha, Akram Zaatari, and research on creative arts therapies in displacement contexts.

When are you allowed to heal?