Rafi’s Story
Every single one of us has an interest in knowing who we are and where we come from. It’s a curiosity that has always been there, and in the past, people spent months or even years in their quest to find out. Sometimes, if they were lucky, they found a few small hints or scraps of information. Other times, they found nothing at all.
Now, it’s much easier to discover these things about ourselves. With DNA testing kits, our historical and geographic origins are no longer so mysterious. The cost of these kits has come down considerably in recent years, making such knowledge available to a larger number of people than ever before. Thanks to this increased accessibility, DNA services, combined with our innate human curiosity about ourselves, have ensured that we will continue to be drawn into the quest for answers about our heritage. People generally think of their ethnicity as fitting into a single box or category, but through DNA testing it often emerges that an individual has multiple ethnicities. In my experience, only about 0.2% of people who claim to be of a single ethnicity find it to be true. The rest all find they are a mix of many things.
Working at MyHeritage, I have seen this revelation spark an interest in many individuals. It is often quite an educational experience for people when they find out their ethnic identity is more complex than they originally believed. They start accessing historical records, learning more about their multiple ethnicities and subsequently appreciating them. Many people even end up traveling to the places they find they are from in order to know the geographical location better, learn about any existing family there, and understand more about the culture.
I was drawn to this work because I saw the way that DNA tests were impacting the lives of so many people every day: how an old record or a newspaper article began to make sense after someone took a DNA test, or how people found each other after many years of searching. It’s the ability to help people complete these puzzles for themselves, and to celebrate the discoveries they make as a result of our breakthroughs in DNA testing, that motivates me. It makes me proud of the work I do.
Artist Notes
“This illustration features a strand of DNA, which contains an individual’s genetic information in great detail. Rafi talks about how the human quest to know who we are and where we come from has always been there. I have tried to show this with a DNA replication fork, which is an important phenomenon in every molecular biology process. There is a magnifying lens inside the DNA, showing the red flower in fine detail, which symbolises the influx of answers one can gain about oneself with the DNA kits. On the bottom right of the illustration, I have tried to incorporate something that looks like a phylogenetic tree, representing family trees. There is also a test tube emerging out of the lens with blood droplets making a circular pattern, which symbolizes finding more about one’s bloodline. ”
Published May 1, 2020
Updated Oct 25, 2022
Published in Issue VI: Identity