This is a journey towards a sense of belonging. It reflects on my experience of being Irish in England. When you say goodbye to your homeland you become part of its diaspora and the concept of belonging takes on new meaning. Familiarity is something that you leave behind as you become dislocated with time. Integration comes within touching distance yet remains elusive with each passing day. After twenty years, one question lingers: where do you belong when you are neither here nor there?
Neither here nor there is a meditation of the diasporic condition from my perspective as an Irish person in London. It embraces Avtar Brah's diaspora space as an alternative means of understanding the experience of migration. As a result, what was traditionally seen as a mono-ethnic space becomes a multiethnic community, the point where hybrid and multiple belongings meet, and narratives become intertwined.
Frances, originally from West Wickham, Kent
Hawthorn, native to Britain
Izabela, from Gliwice in southern Poland
Amelia, from England and Jamaica
Japanese maple, native to Japan, Korea, China, Eastern Mongolia and southeast Russia
Cow parsley, found in Central Europe and the Caucus
Jade, from Chadwell Heath, Essex
Simone, from Enfield, Middlesex
Shadows of tree foliage form a natural tattoo on Jay, Sewardstone Marsh
Mo, originally from Mogadishu, Somalia
Natalie, from Tottenham, London
Scott, born and bred in Hackney, London