(Archive) HOME

What is home?

Moving from one land to another place confuses the sense of belonging, where the narratives constantly float between here and there, before and after, old and new. The homeland is the place that created you and where you learned to use your senses of taste, sight, and hearing.

It’s hard to settle in a new place, and the ordinary and sensory memories are the ones you miss the most: the taste and smell of your grandmother’s bread, the scent of mowed grass in the morning or the sounds from a radio station in your native language.

With time, those memories can be obscured by experiences in the new place, but the roots and traditions often re-emerge through encounters with other internationals and migrants.

A global imaginary

The conversations generated by multicultural encounters, in which we bring back the sounds, flavours and nuances of our homeland, had given shape to an exhibition: The House of Homeland Simulations.

It is built with different memories from “there”, the places left behind for a new life in the Netherlands. It is a house created by women from different parts of the world with varied backgrounds, collectively imagining (and inviting to imagine/create) a place where people can feel safe, happy and welcomed: home.

Though built with memories, this house extends beyond nostalgia, becoming a “global imaginary”: a possibility, a utopia. By imagining, designing, and making a space of shared experiences of comfort and affection, these women are also inviting the community to be involved.

If we are to face the global challenges of the climate crisis, wars, inequalities, and the displacements they cause, we must act in favor of inclusive and diverse environments where more people can feel at home.