What are some ways of perceiving the concept of ‘home’ or ’nhà’* in different circumstances?
*a note on translation: while our shared working language is English, Vietnamese is the mother tongue of one of us. Home and house both mean 'nhà' in Vietnamese: a place to come back to, and can also be understood as hometown.
How can we extend our understanding of home beyond the familiar? What can we do differently?
‘Home’ is perceived differently by each person. Some leave and enter many homes. Some never feel at home. Some always have a home. Some view home as within the self. What does ‘home’ mean and what does it look like? The idea of home could be elusive, a short memory, a specific smell, a combat within one’s own body, a dominant culture, a violent scene, a warm hug, a plant, an imaginary forest, an old book, a breath, a relationship that is no longer there, a fading star. What else?
In the context of an increasingly complex world, one might not feel at home within one’s own home place. How can we extend our understanding of home beyond the familiar, and what can we do differently?
an- collaboration
As a duo, we are one Vietnamese living in Switzerland, working closely with plants and words; and one Australian-Canadian, working closely with earth and plant pigments, and textiles. Together, through our different but resonant set of practices, we bring an intercultural and intergenerational sensibility, and a love of contributing to diverse communities.
Our topic arose from shared personal experiences of feeling uprooted as a result of settling in new lands and cultures, at different ages and stages of life. We have a common interest in learning ways to navigate complexity through care-based, collaborative practices. Mediated through creative exploration, including poetry and mapping, we seek to create intimate spaces for dialogic exchange. By collaborating with each other and extending that collaboration to those in our respective communities, both in-person and online, we hope to touch on the space of 'homeness' to unearth deeper awareness of what home may mean in different contexts and from different perspectives and positionalities.
preliminary research: e-lettering
"dear you" was an invitation to people in our close relational network to provide intimate reflections on what home meant to them and why. Spread across continents, generations and life-experiences, we selected email (e-lettering) as the primary way to communicate. It is a simple, accessible form that allows space for reflection and a way to navigate different time zones. From this preliminary research, a number of themes are emerging, which are informing our next steps.
Handwritten invitation on Vietnamese dó paper
Nguyễn Phương Anh (PA) write poems, be in the water, grow vegetables, continue to learn walking while hugging tangled fibres, practice simple writing and self-decaying freely
Angela is an Australian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and steward of two acres of rural land in Ontario, Canada. Her practice-led research is centred around themes of co-regulation, interconnectedness and material biographies.