Thoughts on Belonging
4 April 2019
So the end of my New Contemporaries studio bursary at Sarabande is quickly approaching. Working here has been pretty transformative to my practice…more so than I could have expected. To have the chance to work here, on my home turf, has enabled me to focus on both my work and myself. As always, when approaching anything new, I am filled with fear and excitement for where my art career will go next…but I’m packing my bags and getting ready for the journey.
Ain’t it funny how preconceptions work?
How our minds can be filled with ideas of people and places based on narratives outside of our own.
The grass is greener on the other side, no?
Over there is the place where I’ll belong…
But what the hell is “belonging”?
Is it community?
Being loved or/and giving love?
The feeling of the sun gently resting on your face when you’re surrounded by nature?
Or the feeling of truly knowing one’s self?
What does belonging even mean?
Why does it seem to be the answer to so many questions?
Why do I seem to spend so much of my days thinking about it and how I’m always striving to feel it?
To feel it more…
and feel it deeper…and intensely…
Warm and all-consuming.
But then what happens when you find it and it’s not what you expected it to be…?
Ain’t it funny how Google searching and hearsay can subdue curiosity? When you thought you knew a place, person or story and shortly find out that your rose tinted lenses had been cemented upon your face.
Ain’t it funny when you realise that the most tickling thing of all, is the thought that you knew yourself wholly, when in reality, here you are discovering that you’re still a near stranger to you.
