Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of discrimination, physical/emotional abuse, and death.

In Belonging, art is both a method of investigation and a medium of healing. Krug uses her skills as an illustrator to sift through layers of inherited trauma and silence, creating a visual language that allows her to approach truths too difficult to access through words alone. The mixed-media approach—text, sketches, archival photos, artifacts—mirrors the fractured, uncertain nature of memory itself. By literally piecing together history through images, Krug performs the act of emotional and cultural reconstruction. For her, art is not about aesthetic beauty; it’s about making the invisible visible. Her drawings helped her make sense of what she could not yet fully grasp.

Many of Krug’s illustrations and paintings are deeply symbolic, such as the image of her standing atop a mountain, ready for the greatest challenge of her life. Another shows Edwin as he faded from himself and the world as a result of the brutalities of war. Some illustrations are simple and contain few lines, leaning toward a more cartoonish style, while others are highly detailed and more realistic. In addition, Krug relies heavily on color, using the entire spectrum and grouping thoughts or events by color.