We are strangers to the outside world.
UN
I VE
VE R SI TY
We started uni in Fall 2020. I returned to school in Fall 2021, after a year-long of staying at home for distant learning.
Right: London Collge of Communication, library
John Agnew (2011) argued that the world is becoming increasingly placeless. There is no particular reason for a process to be taking place in a particular place any longer.
I felt that I was displaced from where I was. Connecting with where I am right now feels difficult.
As a person who came from two different places in the world, I was at once in and out.
ELE PH A N T
C A S TLE
Space is a box. It stores all our loneliness and desires.
Being in a different place, I felt a change in how others perceived my identity. I felt that my body was out of place with the environment. I like it whenever I feel connected to the city and its people; when the people here respect my identity and not see me as an outsider; when they put me before my skin tone, my hair colour, where I study and what I do etc.
I feel like an outsider less because I am not familiar with the slang and undertones, but from the feelings of being different. And I can never go back to who I once were.
BE
L
ON GING
Jeff Malpas (2013), the Australian philosopher, said that returning to a place or coming-home is seeking something within oneself. We’ve never really departed from where we once were.
Ana Mendieta, in her series Silueta, often shows her body, or a simple outline of her figure, impressed into various sites outdoor, then documented in photographic mediums (The Solomon R., n.d.).
I feel like an outsider to the city whenever I feel lost and troubled by the fear of not knowing where I am; a strangeness that I can’t describe. The only thing I could grapple with is the senses of familiarity – the wind, the smell, the touch. I feel connected to the city when it is dark and cold outside. It brings me back to the place where I once felt comfort and familiarity.
“The nostrils awaken a forgotten image, and we are enticed to enter a vivid daydream. The nose makes the eyes remember.” (Pallasmaa, 2012, p. 58)
When I feel a sensation similar to what I had when I was younger (probably sixteen or so) –
– I feel at ease, breathing, and alive.
I long to stay long enough in a place. I wish I could make it stay with me. I wish it could stay with you.
Bibliography Agnew, J. A. and Livingstone, D. N. (2011) The Sage Handbook of Geographical Knowledge. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. Malpas, J. (2013) ‘The Remembrance of Place’, in Cruz-Pierre A. and Landes D. A. (eds) Exploring the Work of Edward S. Casey: Giving Voice to Place, Memory, and Imagination. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 63-72. Pallasmaa, J. (2012) The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. The Solomon R. (no date) Ana Mendieta. Available at: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta (Accessed: 15 October 2022).
Photographed between March - December 2022 Printed at LCC digital print © He Haiyi, 2022