Freerange Vol. 4: Almost Home

8/3/2019 Freerange Vol. 4: Almost Home

1/53

FR

EERANGE

VO

L4:

ALMOS

THOME

Sydney

Wellington

New York

Kiribati

Melbourne

BhopalChristchurch


2/53

FR

EERANGEVO

L4:

ALMOS

THOME


3/53

This material may have previously appeared on the FR websitewww.projectfreerange.com

Print: 978-0-473-20075-6Digital: 978-0-473-20076-3

Freerange JournalPrint: ISSN 1179-8106Digital: ISSN 1179-8114

Freerange Vol4:Almost Home

Published by Freerange PressAotearoa, Atlantis, Australia & etc


4/53

5.

INTRODUCTION:

09

"the right to a home"

A HMA HTS pESpEcTvE OfOcEd MATO

By Tania Leimbach

By Shakey Mo

ByMinna Minova

14

11

BOOKREVIEW 18

ClimBing insidethe giantBy Elizabeth Rush 21

WAS ALMOST HOMEBy Ben Brown 25

ByRuby Usa

Home IN THe DRIVeWAY

27

29

Freerange 4Almost Home

Table of Contents

Unsettlement in the21st CentURY

ByHana Bojangles

ByJoe Cederwall

going... gone:

KbAT Ad THE Hy TdE

LLSTATOS


5/53

6.

GRIHA AND GRAHA: WHERE DO WE

bELONG, WHERE IS OUR HOME?

the lamBess FamilY

ByRajarshi Sahai

ByNoel Meek

hOmeBOdY

hOme is a time nOt a plaCe/MAkE yOURSELF AT HOME

Cheap & ChOiCe aWaRd #4:INTERNATIONAL POSTAL SySTEM

fEEAE Of THE SSE

By Claire Hollingsworth

By Barnaby Bennett

Raise the eaRth;returning home, quietl.ByRoss T. Smith

36

36

39

41

45

48

50


6/53

7.


7/53

8.

It is estimatedthat the human

population will reach9.2 billion by the year2050. Weve reached

7 billion now.


8/53

9.

What is the use of a house if you havent got a tolerable planet to put it on?

If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on?

Henry Thoreau, in a letter to Harrison Blake, 20 May, 1860.

Well, what is the use of a home if the planet we make it on cant

tolerate us?

It is estimated that the human population will reach 9.2 billion by theyear 2050. Weve reached 7 billion now.

Based on the rate of greenhouse gases that have already been releasedinto the atmosphere, we will reach nearly two and a half degrees ofwarming in the next 20-30 years, causing more than 50% extinctionof the planets biomass. Some places will become uninhabitable.Millions of people will become displaced as climate refugees, a new

demographic to go with economic migrants and political refugees.This is just one of many unsettling thoughts that we are faced within this century. So as it is in any relationship, we are going to have tomake some serious commitments if we are to continue calling thisplanet home. And with conditions unlike ever before, we cant simplyrevert to living simple lives on self-sufcient quarter acre farmlets.

There just isnt enough room.

We gotta embrace ways of the future. Its time to support, engagewith, and keep our eyes on innovative systems that might seem

complicated and new fangled at rst. We have ourselves in a delicateand complex situation here its not going to be easy but it doesnthave to be hopelessly overwhelming either. It can be difcult to know

when not to interfere and when to get amongst it. Its a process thatcomes with any conscientious decision, whether its about landscapingyour garden or legislating the genetic modication of crops. We begin

to ask, what is nature doing, what are we doing, and how can wework together?

The very concept of home is even more complex now than it has ever

been before. It is so many things: a house, a place, a country, an idea,a memory, a feeling of comfort or familiarity, a group or populationof people. It is a place where you belong, a place you can return to,

intROdUCtiOn:

Unsettlement inthe 21st CentURYBy

Hana Bojangles:

Wellington

Hana Bojangles is

a journalist whocelebrates the good

things. She also

teaches people the soil

secrets of backyard

food production, plays

drums in exchange for

dinner, makes props,

puppets and costumes

for whoevers game, andis still guring out how

to really be in many

places at once, in a

benecial, community-

creating, wonder-

reviving, kind of way.


9/53

10.

a place where youve settled. It is a lot ofplaces. It might not even be a place at all.

In this issue, our contributors explore home as a place and a sense by literally climbingtheir local landmarks, by poking aroundthe concept of shelter as a human right, byquestioning our cultural interpretations, and

more. Some of these enquiries seem timeless,

stretching back to before humans wereeven humans, others are very much topical,predicaments of the 21st Century.

I offer myself as an example of someonewho is always settled and unsettled all atonce. Ive never had that one childhoodhome where I grew up, or even a hometown for that matter. I am one of those kidswho you meet more and more of these days.One of those kids who, when you ask themwhere theyre from they might tell you thattheir mother is from here, their father is fromthere, but that they grew up here and thereand all over the place. As a result, I dont feel

any more at home at my actual home thanI do anywhere else. Equally, I feel just as at

home anywhere as I do at my own home.I dont really know what it feels like to besettled somewhere. For me, theres onlygetting settled, which is a constant, ongoingand so far, lifelong pursuit.

Im a child of the developed world meetingthe third world, a child of the golden age of

oil and affordable global travel. Im used tobeing a foreigner no matter where I am. Idont take borders seriously. There is not onesingle place in the world where I blend in asa local, whether its because of my accent,my language, or my context.

For the past two years Ive experimented withsettlement. Ive settled into a home where Ihave made long term plans for things such

as a windmill, where I have archetypes likechickens and a garden to anchor me down.

One of my diehard goals in life is not to bea tourist. Part of this endeavour is learninghow to make myself at home in the mostefcient way possible. First step, go buy a loaf

of bread at the local bakery, or a bowl ofsoup from the local street vendor and makefriends with the people who work there observe, listen and exchange. Remind myselfthat theres nothing else to see but this. Laythat FOMO to rest.

Today I believe that its possible to contributeto a place without being a full-time, lifetimeinhabitant of that place. We joke about

teleportation devices but technology hasmade it virtually possible for us sometimeswithout us even knowing to be in morethan one place at once, and a part ofcommunities in places where weve nevereven set foot.

Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe its not.As long as we get off the wide web and spendan equal amount of time in our actual local

environment. Because settling means takingresponsibility for a place and contributingto a community. But seeing the world asa stranger can also mean appreciating it,acknowledging the transient nature of beinghuman and our time on earth.

We have to redene what home is. Its not

somewhere or something we can get tooattached to, yet it is something that we must

be committed to.Ultimately home is the whole planet,the universe and beyond. We share ourhome with billions of other humans, andbillions upon billions of other species. Aswe make ourselves at home here, letsnot forget were not the only ones. Maybeit is best for everyone if we remain alwaysand evermore almost home, always in

that place that is never entirely ours, fromwhere we are committed to earning a realsense of belonging.


10/53

11.


11/53

12.


12/53

13.


13/53

14.

Tania Leimbach writes for exhibitions and journals, keeps up her own print-

media work, and likes to collaborate on public art projects when the stars align.

Shes currently working on a thesis at the Institute for Sustainable Futures,

University of Technology, Sydney. Her research questions what it means to live

sustainably, how to make it happen and what art has to do with it.Tom Zubrycki: Tom Zubrycki has earned an international reputation for hissubstantial and widely-respected body of documentaries. He works mainly in

an observational style and his lms are narrative-based and strongly character-

driven In 2000 he won two Australian Film Institute Awards (Best Director

and Best Documentary) for a documentary called The Diplomat

(www.tomzubrycki.com/lms-director.html#Diplomat), about Jose

Ramos-Horta, the exiled East Timorese freedom-ghter.

Toms latest lm The Hungry Tide, is about the Pacic nation of

Kiribati one of the countries in the world most vulnerable toclimate change. Leading up to the Copenhagen Climate Changeconference in 2009, Tom spent time getting to know the localKiribati community in Sydney and met Maria Tiimon, who becamethe central character for the lm. Maria lives in Sydney, supporting

her extended family in Kiribati through work as a climate changeadvocate. The lm weaves Marias trips to Copenhagen and

Cancun to capture recent international events with a close look atlife on the remote islands of Kiribati.

Tania interviewed Tom in July 2011 to talk about his lm, and hearhis thoughts on the slowly disappearing islands of Kiribati.

TL: The main character in the lm, Maria Tiimon, works between Sydney andKiribati, campaigning for climate action for the Pacic. Shes a strong woman

living between two cultures. How did you come to meet Maria and nd your way

into the story and the culture?

TZ: I met Maria at an event put on by The Pacic Calling

Partnership, out of the Edmund Rice Centre in Sydney. It was a day

devoted to issues around the Pacic, particularly climate change.Ive been interested in Kiribati for a long time and felt that meetingpeople directly affected would be the way to make this lm.

going... gone:

KbAT Ad THEHy TdEBy Tania Leimbach


14/53

15.

We went to Kiribati twice together. Therst shooting trip was with Maria after her

mother had just passed away, so it was anemotional time.

TL: Your lm shows changing environmentalconditions rising sea levels, brackish water, drought

on the islands of Kiribati. Im wondering about

the speed of change and whether its increasing?

TZ: Yes, its exponential. Most climatescientists are giving up hope in temperaturesbeing kept to a 2 rise by 2100. Astemperatures rise the Greenland ice sheetswill melt, and already scientists predict

that in 20-30 years time the North Polewont exist as such. The rate of the meltcontributes to sea level rise and recentanalyses are predicting more than 1 metrerise in sea level by 2100. The implicationsare pretty disastrous, and it could be thatvast numbers of people will perish.

TL: So the islands of Kiribati will disappear?

TZ: Not completely, but theyll be seriouslyinundated. The maximum height on themain island of Tarawa is about 2 metres,and the average height across the islands is1-2 metres, so large sections of the atolls willbe covered at high tide.

TL: The President Anote Tong talks about long-term goals of relocation for the people of Kiribati, as

well as raising and channelling funds for short-

term mitigation. Hes talking about really difcultdecisions many which have no precedent.

TZ: Deliberations are beginning, although

those decisions are not happening rightnow. As the years go on, theyll have to bemade as the sea level rises. Most people inKiribati are living day to day. The income

level is generally very low. On the outerislands its subsistence living shing,copra, breadfruit and taro.

TL: What is your understanding of climaterefugees?

TZ: Its interesting how the phrase is beingused now. The problem is you talk to alawyer and theyll say that climate refugeedoesnt exist as a category in internationallaw. Thats because refugee impliespersecution you might imply it waspersecution by the environment, but thatstough to make into a salient argumentright now.

TL: It seems that people may want to move, butits getting close to a point where they dont have a

choice, where its just about survival is that right?

TZ: Thats right, so thats why thepresident has said, ok we are going tomove with dignity, we dont want to callourselves climate refugees, we dont wantto go cap in hand. He aspires for thepeople of Kiribati to have somethingto contribute to their host country andhes talking about building new skills andknowledge in preparation. But its also very

utopian. You have a mass of very unskilledpeople, who mostly sh for a living.

TL: In the short-term, efforts to improve living


15/53

16.

conditions and address the impacts of climate change

are happening in Kiribati. Did Copenhagen help at

all in moving things forward?

TZ: Copenhagen was a hugedisappointment. At the conference thePacic nations were calling for carbon

emission reductions to slow temperatures

to a 1.5-degree rise over the century.This seems like a dream now, theres solittle agreement internationally. Promiseswere made and money was earmarkedat Copenhagen for Kiribati, but it hasntbeen received. In the short term, publicinfrastructure is in a bad state. Currently,theres only enough money for four out ofeleven proposed projects and the centralgovernment cant really help the smallercommunities. Health and good safe drinkingwater is the priority. The money promisedat Copenhagen was planned for building upthe sea walls and for better drinking water,and that money hasnt arrived yet.

TL: How has the government of New Zealand andAustralia related with Kiribati in recent years are

they supporting relocation?

TZ: At the moment migration is a long anddrawn-out process. Kiribati is kind of stuckout there in the Pacic without the strong

ties of other Polynesian islands. Thatspartly why the future prospects for thenation and its people are so troubling. The

reason that we lmed the Pacic workers

in Robenvale, Victoria, is that they representpeople who are potentially new migrantsworking in the horticultural industries inAustralia. But they are only temporaryguest workers, and they have to go back toKiribati.

TL: Can you talk about the cultural dimensions ofrelocating to New Zealand or Australia and how

you think that may play out?

TZ: Well, it will be difcult. You can see

that now with the small number of peoplefrom Kiribati in Sydney and Melbourne;Theres a high level of unemployment, anda lot of single women with kids, which is aparticular fact of marrying Australian men

and divorcing them after a short periodof time. Another aspect of the migrantexperience is that the rst generation really

struggles but the second generation oftendo very well, generally through education.You see that with Afghan and Hazararefugees and what happens to the youngergeneration, they just blossom.

In the case of Kiribati, its going to be more

difcult for the people who come fromthe remote islands. For those on the mainisland Tarawa, they are already living ina semi-urbanised environment where thecash economy is important, so the transitionwont be so hard. The old people of Kiribati


16/53

17.

cannot entertain the idea of moving itwould be tantamount to dying; MariasDad talks about this. Younger people aregenerally more adaptive and moving may notbe so threatening. If youve got a family andaspirations for education and work, youllmove anywhere there are opportunities.

The big question is one of culture andadaptation. You can see Kiribati hasa strong communal culture they likedancing, eating, cooking doing everythingin community. So transplanting yourself to anew environment where you dont have thatto fall back on is going to be difcult. The

only thing that helps is if there are otherpeople around who are in the same position.Like any group that migrates, theres greatstrength in numbers.

TL: The lm brings home the hard reality ofclimate change for certain communities. The island

paradise is a pretty strong collective image, the

tropical warmth, slow-pace and easy beauty, and we

see it is gradually sinking under rising sea levels.

Its a sad reality to watch.

TZ: It is, and for the people of Kiribati

its unlike the situation of other refugeesfrom Sudan or elsewhere, who can returnhome eventually. The problem for peoplefrom Kiribati is that over the next centurytheir homeland could become extinct.That is an unsettling thing; especially since,

traditionally, there is a strong connectionwith past generations. Family burialsites are built close to communities, andthe idea of living with your ancestors isimportant, so when that link is brokenthings will inevitably be different. In thelm, Maria visits her mothers grave and

this has particular signicance for her, living

between Sydney and Kiribati.

TL: There are no practical solutions for that kind of

loss. Do you think the psychological impact of climate

change will be taken more seriously over time?

TZ: No doubt the rate of populationmigration through climate change is goingto increase over the next century. Thatsgoing to create an incredible sense of

psychological dislocation, with many morepeople who are feeling like theyre pulledtwo ways. If you cant go home, and youcant get back to that link with your past,it will be a question of something in the

memory, in the individual and collectivepsyche and thats it. The full dimensions aregoing to be hard to measure.

The Hungry Tide is screening on SBS (The

Australian Special Broadcasting Service) in late2011. Its doing the international festivalcircuit and can be accessed viawww.thehungrytide.com.au. This is theedited version of an interview in July 2011.


17/53

18.

At the beginning of her 1967 essay On Home, Joan Didion takes careto clarify that by home I do not mean the house in Los Angeleswhere my husband and I and the baby live, but the place where myfamily is, in the Central Valley of California. It is a vital although

troublesome distinction. You have to take her word for it unlessyoure intimately familiar with Californias regional quirks, but herlast words ring true no matter where you come from or where youvebeen: theres your house and then theres home and sometimes thedifference between the two is so great it hurts.

In Color Me English: Migration and Belonging Before and After 9/11 (TheNew Press, August 2011), the St. Kitts-born British author Caryl

Phillips suggests that the distinction between house and home is evenmore troubling if your family is from the West Indies or Southeast

Asia or Africa and your house (or at, as the case may be) is inEngland. A young Caryl Phillips the only black student at a Leedshigh school learns quickly that white Britons dont always mind

their manners when it comes to dealing with people of color (or is itcolour? We Americans discriminate against extra vowels). The rst

time one is called a nigger or told to go back to where you camefrom, Phillips writes in the essay Necessary Journeys, ones identityis traduced and a great violence is done to ones sense of self . Itmakes Didions distinction feel almost quaint by comparison, if only

in the sense that its hard to imagine anyone in Los Angeles yelling at

her to go back to where she came from and calling her namesbutyou never know. It was the 60s, people were on edge.

Phillips attempts to do for race in the 90s and 00s what Didiondid for American cultural identity in the 60s with Slouching TowardsBethlehem: to capture something elusive, broad and complicated byway of the essay collection, a format that can make a complicatedissue slightly more accessible, like sitting down to a meal of non-ction tapas. Phillipss collection is about race and racism, yet he

doesnt quite write about those things. He writes about displacement

of peoples and notions of home. He writes about cultures andidentities formed in the crossing of borders. He writes about thesongStrange Fruitas it relates to lynching in the American south. He

cOLO ME ELSH:MATO AdbELObEfOE AdAfTE 9/11

Reviewed by

Minna Ninova:

New York

Minna Ninova strivesto always look on the

bright side of life, as

suggested by the 1979

lm Monthy PythonsLife of Brian. Failingthat, she makes maps

and writesor is it

takes naps and ghts?

Shes not sure. Shell

get back to you. In themeantime, she lives in

Brooklyn, USA


18/53

19.

writes about Luther Vandross, the movieBullworth, E.R. Braithwaite (whom SidneyPoitier portrayed in the lm adaptation of

To Sir With Love) and the Chinese American

author Ha Jin. He writes about Africanimmigrants in France and British writers inJapan. He writes about Israel, Leeds, SierraLeone and New York City. ShakespearesOthello makes several appearances. Indeed,rarely does he demand that we read hiswords exclusively through the prism of

race and I suspect that coming across oneof these essays in the Guardian (wherethe author is a frequent contributor) is

an uplifting experience: Phillipss writingcomes from a place of deep compassionand a belief in societys ability to correctinjustice. Its only via repetition of certainthemes (institutional racism in Britain,mistrust and assimilation of immigrantculture, the African American experience)

that the collection begins to gain a cloak ofmelancholy seriousness that doesnt alwayssuit it.

The 38 essays, written between 1993 and2009, show a talented, curious writer growinginto his convictions while turning personaland societal trauma into elegant prose. Theyalso demonstrate Phillipss commitment tothe idea that writing in general and storytelling in particular can help us grapple withdifcult problems. Literature for Phillips

isnt just a cultural artifact, its a force forchange and a device for locating ourselvesin time and space. How does one have ablack face and be European? This has beenone of the great essay questions of my life,

he writes in the introductory essay and itstrue that his own life makes for some of the

more compelling essay topics. Writing forhim is a journey not to be taken lightly orunderestimated which probably helps explain

Phillipss penchant for proles of esoteric

literary gures like Lefcadio Hearn. Along

with the somewhat arbitrary, non-sequential

ordering of the essays, these portraits rob thecollection of some momentum. The subtitle,too, is misleading*. Phillips witnessed thedevastation in New York City on September11th, 2001, and wrote about it eloquently in

the moving piece Ground Zero. However, thereis nothing in the structuring of the essays tosuggest a before and an after, especially

since Ground Zero and three other post-9/11pieces are placed at the very beginning ofthe volume. No doubt intended as a lure forAmerican readership, the imsy reference to

the attacks is nevertheless supercial and a

wee crude. The reader is advised to quickly

navigate around such distractions and tochart his or her own course through thevolume.

A helpful hint: save the essay on Leeds forlast. Here youll nd Phillips returning to his

rst English home and meditating on the

physical and psychological landscapes of thecity which makes for a nice sendoff, especiallyafter a summer that many Britons willremember for its destructive riots and publicdebates about cultural difference, assimilationand social order. The events highlighted theneed for writers like Phillips whose work,if anything, stands for the value of culturaldifference and the acknowledgement that fewof us get to choose the bonds we form withour houses, streets, cities, countries and forlack of a less troublesome term our homes.

The New Press, $25.95 (American)

* This fulmination applies only to the American

edition. The British edition is properly voweled

and features an image of white people on a redbus. Go gure.

bOOk REVIEW


19/53

20.

C

limB

ing

ins

ide

Curiosity,enthusiasm, steely

nerves, and physicalstrength had carriedme to the very top

of one of the greatengineering feats

from the turn of thelast century.


20/53

21.

The metal girders of Manhattan Bridge still held the warmth of thesun. It was well past midnight and the summer was coming to anend. For the previous month, Id been having fever dreams. I mademy body crescent shaped, turned it in the direction of the fan and

tried to sleep. And sleep I would, for an hour or two, seeing someform of the apocalypse. Then wake, sleep, and wake again. On andon till morning. The days themselves waivered like heat-lines risingoff the pavement. It was my second summer in New York, and itwas delirium.

Kiss me, Steve said, just before we scaled the chain-link fencethat separated us from the north tower of Manhattan Bridge,for good luck.

Suddenly I understood how easily a human body could slip into

a structure that I had always thought of as impenetrable. Girdersran up the towers outside wall. Like over-sized Xs, the hot metalcrossed once every ten feet or so. I kept my back pressed up againstthe inner wall, which was solid, and climbed, hand over st, using

the girders like the rungs on a ladder.

I had been living in Brooklyn for a year and still felt like an outsider.I wasnt a tourist, but the city also wasnt mine. I did not belong toit and it did not belong to me. People say it takes ten years beforeyou can call yourself a New Yorker. The funny thing was that after a

year of living on 10th street I didnt even know if I wanted that title.

I was a tiny bug. I was clambering up inside the body of a giant.I was a super hero. Then I popped out a little trap door at thetop. Steve and I had been climbing for nearly twenty minutes.All it took was 322 vertical feet to crack that city wide open likea pomegranate tossed against a rock. There it was before me:its gleaming insides windows, and people sleeping, tiny seeds,vital organs all vulnerable and exposed. I panted and lay on mystomach, pleased with myself and with the large metal globes that

decorated the bridges pinnacle and the sleeping city beyond. Wecracked a beer and leaned into each other. Every truck that drovebeneath us made the metal hum. In every strong gust of wind I

the giantBy Elizabeth Rush:New York

Elizabeth Rushs work has

appeared in Granta, Le

Monde Diplomatique, AsianArt News, the New Orleans

Review, and the Seneca

Review. A member of the

Makoto Photography Agency

you can see more of her work at

www.makotophotographic.com.


21/53

22.

could feel the structure ux. The rivets that

were pounded into place some hundredyears before were suddenly very realbeneath my ngertips. There was the city!

Its infrastructure, its people, its history!And there were my ngertips!

I had biked across the Manhattan Bridgemany times that summer but never oncethought of it as t for exploration. Its

amazing how we are taught to interpreturban structures as fundamentally one-dimensional they are residential andcommercial spaces, places built for the

transport of goods or people. Then one nightin August, on the insistence of a man I havesince fallen completely in love with, I crossedover, clambered in, climbed up, bent myear to the steel and listened. I heard storiesabout the ways in which New York and itspeople change and grow. Stories about howMohawk Native Americans built the citysskyscrapers because they were less afraid ofheights than most; of how it was the husband

and wife team, Emily and WashingtonRoebling, who got the Brooklyn Bridgenished after its engineer died of tetanus.

Hours later, Steve and I descended fromour perch high above Gotham and leftthe bridge behind. Walking to the F train,we sang some old folk songs songs ofconsternation, of trains rockin, and wheatelds drying up, of women and whiskey,

songs of the American West, heavy with theloneliness and excitement that comes withdiscovering a new frontier. We sang softly.The earth spun and the worlds dawn-light

turned on. I guess you could say that as Icarried my bike down the steps at the JayStreet subway station, I knew somehow thatmy life in the city would never be the same.I hadnt become a New Yorker overnight.What happened was even better. I had stoodat the start of something grand and I knewit. Ok, so I knew I might actually fall forSteve, and that carried all of the wonderfulsensations that come with the promise of


22/53

23.

constructed and how they support everyaspect of our precious urban lives. By 2050,70% of the worlds population will live incities. And it will be our job to make these

potentially alienating landscapes our own.TS Eliot closes hisFour Quartets, with thefollowing lines,We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the rst time.

New York City is once again inchingtowards the sun. Its Friday afternoon andSteve and I are sitting on my stoop. Weare eating pie and talking about nding

order in confusion. I look up and notice thepoplar leaves shimmering like bell-noise andthink to about how I will understand theirmovements better after we venture out andcome back.

Where should we go? Steve asks.

love. But perhaps even better, or at leastvaguely more sure, was the fact that I hadglimpsed the possibility of knowing thatmegalopolis on my own terms. Perhaps I

had found a way to love the city that was inname, but not yet in spirit, my home.

Curiosity, enthusiasm, steely nerves, andphysical strength had carried me to the verytop of one of the great engineering featsfrom the turn of the last century. Neverbefore had I thought of those traits, traitsthat I enjoyed if not valued above all else,as truly t for use in an urban environment.

Climbing the bridge, using my body tonavigate its cross beams, I felt like I wasjourneying to the edge of myself and ofspace like I was climbing a mountain.

Every day, we city-dwellers move throughmany-layered and much-planned structuralsystems. We ride subways, drink water, crossbridges, stroll sidewalks, often without beingkeenly aware of the ways these systems are


23/53

24.

Was almost home, the roadturned to me, found myself in

circles, had to extricate myself,not easily done unless youknow a trick or two, I do.


24/53

25.

Was almost home, took a wrong turnsomewhere, back road style, new andunfamiliar territory, deemed it necessaryto take notice of things, a man could gethimself lost in such circumstances. Met an

enlightened individual proclaimed himselfto be a God, but only one of many, gave mehis blessing which I duly excepted with nosmall element of grace, its not every dayyou meet a God. Asked him where I was, hesaid You here. I said thank you very much.

I came upon a bridge which asked me tocross over it without a toll, bridge built byitself and offers a majestic view of an abyss,

dont look down seems sage advice.Was almost home, came upon a battleeld,

dead lovers and weeping dogs in themidst of carrion, bloated crows on high inworthless conversation got that black eyestare reserved for a truly innocent soul. Thatlets me off the hook. Seeya later crows, I gotsomewhere else to be.

Was almost home, I met the Mother of the

World and she seemed frail to me, as to beexpected, heavy load to bear and no oneelse to carry it, I said Mother can I helpyou? She said No, be on your way son, youhave children of your own.

Was almost home, the road turned to me,found myself in circles, had to extricatemyself, not easily done unless you know atrick or two, I do.

Was almost home, I see the light on, bethere shortly

WAS ALMOSTBy Ben Brown:

Christchurch

Ben once lived in a

bigarse volcano, that

was cool though,

volcanos are generallymellow, until they get

impatient, then they

kick you out and you

have to start writing

for a living... which is

fuckin funny...

HO

M

E


25/53

26.

Perpetually I am almost home. Which is asilly sort of thing to say when I live in thesame tiny rural town I was raised in. Parentsdown the street.

Thirty years, and the bakery is the samebakery, the high school mascot still thegreyhounds, the junior high still thegreypups. Often, I hate it here. Beneaththe layers, sure, I might hate myself. Sonaturally, I do my best to love it here. But Icant quite... quite feel that imagined joy of

comfort at home. Almost though.

I didnt feel at home living in my parents

driveway last year. I built myself a littlehouse, and in it found a place that wasso close to home. Then decided to movethousands of miles away. My friends arescattered; my heart is scattered. I try to pulltogether the kind of wholesome well-beingthat I witness in those who have a clearsense of home. But when I habitually seekperfection, I cant help but be repelled from

my home. This town doesnt reect me, Ithink, and I take to the road.

Nevertheless, one beat later and Im back,this time only nine blocks from the house Igrew up in. I try not to sneer, because I amin love, and more than anything anytime, Iwant to be home.

I try for months.

I take to being consistent: waking up andmilking goats, feeding chickens, collectingeggs, turning on the irrigation for our row

ByRuby Usa

Ruby Usa was born

in a small town. She

works as a content

gatherer for aninternational economics

talk show while raising

her three beautiful

children and enjoying

her husband.

HOME IN

THE DRIVEWAy


26/53

27.

crops. I dig and sweat, learn to kill and gutand cool down dead animals for eating later,I build again, I do laundry and dishes. Themonotony makes my mind spin.

The grind breaks, and with my love wejump into where the creek meets the river.Only then, under water, do I feel perfectlysurrounded and like a little stinky sh,

at home.

Then we go home, only to nd that my

perfect home is hard to share with someoneelses perfect home. In the face of this soul-shattering botched romantic fantasy, of all

the idiotic and predictable paths, I smokeand drink to feel at home. Nicotine makesmy feet feel heavy, and sometimes thatsall I need. I dont, but do, consider takingharder drugs to feel even more at home, orhopefully have the feeling of being settledlast longer. I daydream that just one thingwould change: that I could feel at home.Right here. Without being a drug addict.

In the city I saw a man ride by on hisbicycle. The back of his shirt read, IT ALLSTARTS WITH ATTITUDE.

Our car oated me north, and here I am

again, with my lover, in our same bakerygreypup town. There is no easy home.I cannot think about it too much, it doesno good.

I pull it together: I milk the cryinggoats, I slap my bad attitude, and I amhome, almost.

Then we go home, onlyto nd that my perfect home

is hard to share with someoneelses perfect home.


27/53

28.

THERIGHT

TO AHOME

Forced migration is not a newproblem, however the potential human

and economic cost resulting from the

displacement we face in the near future

is a serious cause for concern.


28/53

29.

A HUMAN RIGHTS PER-

SPECTIVE ON FORCEDMIGRATION

ByJoe Cederwall:

Wellington

Studied Law and

Anthropology in

Wellington, New

Zealand and is

currently self employed

as an Immigration

Lawyer working

primarily with Pacic

migrant and refugee

communities. Has

a strong interest in

advocating for astronger Human

Rights framework

in Immigration and

Refugee Law.

Article 25. Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948)

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate

for the health and well-being of himself and of his family,

including food, clothing, housing and medical care and

necessary social services, and the right to security in the eventof unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or

other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration sets out a number of keyelements that can be said to constitute the concept of Home.Sadly, we are failing to provide these necessities of nutrition,shelter, healing and a social support structure to all members ofthe global community. The reasons for this failure are various andinterconnected but a major contributing factor is the displacement

caused by the endemic problem of forced migration. How can weensure that in the future these Human Rights relating to the homeenvironment are truly universal in more than just name?

The term forced migration, as dened by the InternationalAssociation for the Study of Forced Migration, includes a wide rangeof people displaced either within or outside of their nation of originby circumstances beyond their control. This denition is wider than

the traditional, and often misunderstood, term of refugee. Crucially,this denition of forced migration includes those people displaced

by natural, environmental, chemical and nuclear disasters as well asby famine or development projects. This gives the termm far morerelevance to the society of the future in which such events may bemajor drivers in migration patterns.

Forcibly displaced people have a very acuteawareness of the importance of Human Rights tothe concept of Home and of the fact that Homerelates more to a mental or physical state of refugethan to any xed geographic or spatial location.

With this in mind, it is understandable that simpleitems, such as this shade netting provided by theSheikh-Yaseen camp in Pakistan, can drastically


29/53

30.

alter the environment and enhance thecomfort and lifestyle of the inhabitants.

The rst humans started spreading out of

Africa around 110,000 years ago.We have always been a migratory speciesand seem to have an insatiable curiosityabout what opportunities may lie beyondthe horizon. Our culturally diverse modernsocieties of were all created by, and arestill being shaped by, successive waves ofmigration from indigenous peoples throughto more recent arrivals.

Forced migration is not a new problem,however the potential human and economiccost resulting from the displacement weface in the near future is a serious causefor concern. Environmental destruction,resource wars, diminishing food security,rapidly rising populations and developingthird world economies mean that forcedmigration will be a major contributor tothese growing numbers in the coming years.

According to theInternational Organizationfor Migrations World Migration Report2010,estimates are that the number ofinternational migrants worldwide is currentlyover 200 million and at the current rate willreach 400 million by 2050.

One major accelerating factor in futuremigration levels will be the acutemanifestations of global climate change.

Many communities worldwide are facingrising sea levels, extreme storm surges,ooding, drought, insecure food supply

and other associated problems causingpopulation displacement at unprecedentedlevels. According to academics andinternational agencies, there are currentlyseveral million environmental migrantsworldwide, and this number is expectedto rise to tens of millions within the next20 years, and hundreds of millions withinthe next 50 years. This phenomenon wasrecently dramatically evident in Somalia

and in Pakistan where simultaneousdrought and oods have left over 12

million people displaced or in need ofurgent humanitarian assistance.

A House in Alaska which is no longer aHome.

Such environmental migration tendsto disproportionately affect developingnations because their precarious geography,histories of imperialism and unsustainabledevelopment leave them without resourcesto face such challenges. This vulnerability

further cements the place of developingnations as victims of the global economicorder and as mass exporters of humancapital. An example is the current faminein the Horn of Africa region where mostrefuge and assistance is being provided bydeveloping countries while the aid responsefrom wealthy nations has been somewhatslow and underwhelming. The UN HighCommissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

recently stated in his address on WorldRefugee Day 2011 that: Despite whatsome populist politicians would have us believe,

approximately 80 percent, [of refugees] are hosted and

cared for in developing countries. To take a current

example, only about two percent of the people eeing

Libya are seeking refuge in Europe.

Many commentators believe that developednations should be contributing much

more to addressing this displacementproblem due to their superior wealth andtheir greater contribution to creating the


30/53

31.

economic and environmental problemswe face today. However, the globalnancial crisis is currently being skillfully

manipulated to create resentment against

migrants and refugees and to justify rigidnational immigration policies and smallrefugee resettlement quotas. UNHCR has

recently expressed concern that the currentresettlement programs of the few nationswho do offer them are not even keepingpace with the growth of refugees in urgentneed of resettlement.

Both permanent and temporary migration to

developed nations can play a highly valuablerole in development by allowing migrantsto achieve safety and stability, to gain skillsand experience and to remit money backto their homeland. Current protectionistpolicies in developed nations fail to promotesuch valuable development tools and simplyguard the wealth and privilege amassed atthe expense of underdeveloped nations and

the environment.Solutions

Although organisations such as UNHCRand various NGOs are doing an admirablejob with limited resources, the sheer volumeof the displacement likely to occur in thefuture necessitates a new approach. Theinterconnectedness created by globalizationand technological progress means that

no migration situation can now be seenin isolation, and also offers us potentialsolutions to the problems we face. Weurgently require a wholesale re-application

of our global resources and technology toaddress the causes of displacement ratherthan the symptoms.

It is within the power of developed nationsto radically reduce the root causes of forcedmigration by altering the course of theglobal market and economic system, andassisting democracy and social justice to

ourish. We need proactive policies at both

national and international levels that targetthe poverty, environmental destruction,wars and inequalities causing our current

displacement problems.We must adopt a Human Rights centeredunderstanding of what constitutes aHome and work towards providing allmembers of our global society with accessto these rights without exception. Only asystem that respects the rights of all to astable home environment will allow us towork towards a new age of greater freedom

of movement, stability and equality in thearea of human migration.

Further Reading

The Universal Declaration of HumanRights Adopted by the General Assemblyof the United Nations and proclaimed onDecember 10, 1948. http://www.un.org/en/

documents/udhr/index.shtmlWhat is Forced Migration Online http://www.forcedmigration.org/whatisfm.htm

World Migration Report 2010 The Futureof Migration: Building Capacities for Change,International Organization for Migration,2010.http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/WMR_2010_ENGLISH.pdf

United Nations High Commissioners message for

World Refugee Day,20 June 2011http://www.unhcr.org/4e033be29.html


31/53

32.


32/53

33.

THE

LAMbESSFAMILy

The Lambess family live in Tikipunga,Whangarei, New Zealand.

The son, Neil Lambess, collects mainlyscience ction lms and memorabilia. His

collection lls two rooms, top to bottom,and one hallway.

Alison Lambess, the mother, collects dolls.They ll most of the rest of the house.

Terry Lambess, the father, is one of NewZealands only accordion repairers. Hispassion is vintage cars and motor bikes,though his collection, in the garage, is not as

large as those of his wife and son.They live across the road from my old highschool. Ive known them for nearly twodecades and love them dearly.

The Lambesses at dinner.

The empty place is mine.

Photos and Text

by Noel Meek:

Wellington

Noel Meek is a

Wellington based noisevocalist and drama

teacher. He enjoys

travelling the world

and staying home to

do both of these.


33/53

34.


34/53

35.

Clockwise from left:

Neil Lambess in his movie viewing room.

Terry Lambess with one of his accordions.

Alison Lambess in the lounge with some of her

dolls and Biggles.


35/53

36.

Griha and Graha are a homophonic pair in Hindi and Sanskrit.The two words taken together represent the duality of life- the different frames of reference in which we live and traverse inthe universe.

Griha, literally meaning home, represents the feeling of homeand belonging in space. Graha, on the other hand represents theheavenly bodies, constantly in motion relative to others. The systemof such movements triangulates our position with respect to otherheavenly bodies and is deeply related to the astrological premisethat the position of planets affects our lives on earth.

The relationship between Graha and Griha becomes apparentonce we shift our frame of reference to sit outside the earth. Onceseen from the universe, it is clear that we are not truly stable in our

homes, but are moving around the sun in an ever-evolving path.We see that even the position of sun relative to other stars/solarsystems is constantly being redened and expanded. Suddenly, the

difference between Graha (home) and Griha (heavenly bodies in

motion) ceases to exist.

In our post-modern lives, we are often faced with the challenge ofdening ourselves. Globalization and Internet bring us all closer and

as some would say, make us place independent. It is increasinglydifcult to dene where we belong. On one hand, place matters and

the global capital and knowledge centres remain stagnant in certainplaces, like world cities, knowledge cities and nance capitals. At the

same time, we are all travelling more and living in multiple places.We are meeting people from all over the world and feeling at onewith them. We are still identied by our citizenships, faith and race.

Increasingly our identities are blending through multi-citizenshipsand multi-race. It is becoming difcult to segregate ourselves into

dened subsets and the question remains where do we belong,

where is our home?

Perhaps an answer can be found by looking at Indian culture,and the very Indian concept of vasudhev kutumbakam- theworld is our home. Central to Indias cultural fabric is its history

GRIHA AND GRAHA:

WHERE DO WE bELONG,WHERE IS OUR HOME?ByRajarshi Sahai:

India

Raj is an Architect,

Urban Development

Planner, DevelopmentEconomist and

Environmental Planner.

His professional work

includes consultancy on

issues of Sustainability,

Gender, Rehabilitation

and Resettlement,

Cost-Benet Analysis,

Monitoring andEvaluation, Water

Supply and Sanitation,

Architecture and Urban

Planning.


36/53

37.

as a nation created by a melting-pot ofcultures. Generations of migrants fromthe entire world have come and founda home, It is difcult to separate the

ethnicities, customs, religions and races thathave contributed to dene contemporary

India. It is this unique culture that has

allowed Indian people to constantly movebetween the dichotomy of attachmentand detachment. When we know thatthe Griha or home is not permanent orstationary and that we are equally related

to the distant Grahas or heavenly bodies,the only things of importance remain thepursuit of excellence, and making ourlives meaningful, irrespective of where weare. The success stories of global Indiaare a testimony to this cultural value andwill continue to inspire and fascinatehumankind like no other.

Being able to frame things from this

perspective means everyone belongs,however mobile we are as long as we letourselves belong as global citizens.

Griha, literally meaning home,represents the feeling of home and

belonging in space. Graha, on the otherhand represents the heavenly bodies,constantly in motion relative to others.


37/53

38.

Our sensualbeing, as inserted

in the worldof phenomenathrough the senses,

as our being-in-the-world, puts our

esh in contact with

the objective natureof being human;

the thinglinessof our existence.

We exist as visible

beings on the edgeof the invisible, notonly do we convey

this body with us atall times but its very

nature is one of

death.


38/53

39.

It was October 2008 when I rst met Juhani Pallasmaa at his ofce

in Helsinki. I asked him, what is the one big question about your

life and work? His answer, what is my place in the world? Fromthis question to himself Pallasmaa returns to the sensuous body,

the domestic and interior, to silence, memory, and imagination inmany of his writings on architecture; a return to home, the placeof primary dwelling, ones site of belonging. Pallasmaa is a Finnisharchitect and theorist and juror of the Pritzker Prize in architecture.He says, our domicile is the refuge of our body, memory, andidentity.1. Not only is his response a claim for the physical andhumane in the built environment but also one of metaphysicalenquiry; that which is inexplicable, ephemeral, invisible, and mostly

out of reach, yet amuses and envelops the mind. Our sensual being,as inserted in the world of phenomena through the senses, as our

being-in-the-world, puts our esh in contact with the objectivenature of being human; the thingliness of our existence. We existas visible beings on the edge of the invisible, not only do we conveythis body with us at all times but its very nature is one of death.Pallasmaa says, architecture is deeply engaged in the metaphysicalquestions of the self and the world, interiority and exteriority, time

and duration, life and death.2 By building we remain present,phenomenologically, through our senses and mind, that is tosay, without them we would make no connection to, or with, the

physical or ephemeral world we inhabit.Embodiment is a primary consideration in architecture, whether itbe domestic or commercial, a bus shelter or an airport the bodyis the reason we build. The body desires a physical dwelling withcomfort, delight and haptic satisfaction. Whereas the perceivingmind, being the repository of experience and the keeper of records,provides us with the psychological interpretation of our lived world,memory of events, and an imagination of possibilities; a poiesis

1. Pallasmaa, Juhani. Stairways of the Mind.Encounters: architectural essays. Ed.

Peter MacKeith. (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2005.) 61.

2. Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin. (Chichester, UK: Wiley

Academy, 2005.) 16.

ASE THE EATH;returning home, quietl.

ByRoss T. Smith:

Melbourne

Ross T. Smith is a PhD

candidate in architecture

at the University ofMelbourne, and is

also a photographic

artist who exhibits

internationally. He is a

New Zealander; and a

very good horse rider!


39/53

40.

the bringing into existence of somethingthat was not already there. Pallasmaa adds:What is missing from our dwellings todayare the potential transactions between body,

imagination, and environment. 3 Althoughphenomenology deals with phenomena ofthe physical world it is necessary, throughour minds agility, to interpret these in ourown and unique way in order to make sense

of the world and what it presents to us.

A building is the raising up of the earth inorder that the stillness of the Earth may beinhabited. It becomes a remodelling and

reconstruction of the Earth, and in thisway of thinking, architecture is a conceptand the building is the result of that idea;that result being mans dwelling and shelterin the world. Yet our domestic dwellingsare needlessly becoming dissociated fromthe earth (and sky) and our inhabitation

is being reduced to a prefabricatedsamelessness. Pallasmaa adds: Home haslost its metaphysical essence and become afunctionalized and commodied product.4Pallasmaa has strong views against theway in which building is reinforcing thisisolation and narcissism: In my viewthe task of architecture is similarly tomaintain the qualitative articulation of

existential space. Instead of participationin the process of further speeding up ourexperience of the world, architecture

has to slow down experience, halt timeand defend the slowness of experience.5Silence in architecture is not a conditionof nothingness, of empty space andnoiselessness. Silence captures the essence

3. Pallasmaa. The Eyes of the Skin. 40.4. Pallasmaa. Identity, Intimacy, and Domicile.

Encounters. 122.5. Pallasmaa, Juhani. Lived Space. Sensuous

Minimalism. Ed. Fang Hai. (China Architectureand Building Press, 2002.) 184.

of ones self, encountered as a singularbeing, who is as present as an arrow in time.

An architecture of silence and deliberationis more disquieting than the absence

of anxiety in that the sound of silencebecomes a deeply spiritual, if notexistential, experience of facing ones selfin the world. It is a realisation of onesaloneness and microscopic insignicance

in relation to the innity of endless space

and to the multitudes who also exist onthis st of dirt spinning around the sun.

As our physical, natural world can never

be silent, the stillness of architecture isner than tranquillity, it is more profound

than quietness and more important to our

spiritual well-being than time-out; silence,as with quietude, is self-imposed. Without

having the vastness of innite space

contained within the bordering function ofwalls and roofs we would, like the Earth,tumble through space, although held downby gravity, yet without gravitas. Home isour refuge and works to ameliorate anincreasing insecurity and internationalisednomadism by ensuring a place for our bodyand mind to rest, to dream, and be still. Letus then, return home, quietly.


40/53

41.

The neighbourhood was abuzz with the news that a house upfor sale by real estate agency Living Homes was open forinspection. A crowd was gathering, hoping to acquire something

beyond that which they had already secured. A cell, a womb, amansion, a tomb

This home had a lot to offer, be it for a few minutes, or for alifetime and beyond. Needless to say, there was plenty of interestas neighbours and strangers gathered to envisage the life thatcould be theirs.

C. Mann was one of the rst to arrive and was hoping to secure the

house thanks to a deposit from his father. He had plans to develop,then vacate and acquire many more homes in the world.

The expertly kind Pro. Biotics and the white army of do-gooders(led by Sgt. Luke OCyte) were hoping to secure the home for

the long term. They would take very good care of it and wouldbe vigilant in regards to maintenance and repairs. With theassistance of B cells they would set up a home alarm system andneighbourhood watch, ghting to keep the house free of unwanted

guests. In case of their arrival, T cells would assist in removing.

Other do-gooders present at the inspection included sunshine, arainbow and a barrage of happy thoughts. They believed they couldcreate a positive atmosphere in the house and also thought theycould play a role in keeping out unwanted guests. Some mockedtheir optimism, laughing at how ridiculous it was for a rainbowto assume it would still be throwing around colour after a few

By Claire

Hollingsworth:

Melbourne

Claire has been a

Free-Ranger ever sinceshe was old enough

to open the front door

by herself, cruising the

neighbourhood and

dropping little bits of

old cabbage from the

bottom of the crisper so

there would always be a

trail leading back home.

The police would have

had far less trouble nd

her, had they noticed

the trail. You have keep

your wits about you,

Detective.

HOMEbODy

Although Giardia madean appearance, it became

apparent that he was justpassing through.


41/53

42.

encounters with darker forces. As cynicalas the skeptics may have seemed, theyappeared to change their tune after a warmcup of peppermint tea and a big hug.

Although Giardia made an appearance, itbecame apparent that he was just passingthrough. He was asked to leave after hefouled-up the bathroom, and when heshowed resistance, he was escorted from thepremises by the White Army.

Some of Giardias para-posse were alsopresent, including Hooka, Roundy,Pinny, Tapey, Trichy, Schizzaand Whippa. They only attended theinspection because they had heard thatthere would be free food. When they foundthat there was none, they paid a visit tothe neighbours.

Syph, Gono, Chlammy, Crabba and all thegang liked the idea of making the housetheir home, and were also keen to get toknow the neighbours. While the neighbourswere tempted to party with them, they reallydidnt want them hanging around.

The DSM Collective of Wayward Thoughts

had plans to take over and to run it as achaotic share house. They would irritateand inspire one another with their uncouthhabits and their obsessive, repetitive orunpredictable ways. Their emotional stateswould oscillate between moods reminiscentof the Munch, Van Gogh and Picassopaintings that lined the hallways. Dependingon these moods, the house would be eithereerily quiet, or would blare what the

neighbourhood deemed to be offensivemusic at high decibels. The Collectivewould argue that nothing in their music

collection could possibly be as offensive asthe neighbours leaf blower on a Sundaymorning. Mornings would be difcult

for the Collective as they would be tiredfrom late night meetings in the attic wherethey would devise grandiose plans as theneighbours slept. The plans which wouldcome to fruition would offend, astound, or

be completely lost on the neighbours.

While sometimes associating with the DSMCollective, The Black Dog would preferto live alone. He would like to make thehouse his home and would work very hardto obtain it, but upon moving in wouldnd himself exhausted. Unable to give any

more, he would leave it empty, close theshutters, and take a nap for the foreseeable

future. Some of the neighbours would bringlamb shanks and try to gently wake him;others would whisper to each other andclose themselves from him in turn, puzzledand a little frightened by his sadness.

Our Heavenly Father, the Prince ofDarkness and Natures Ploughmen werecompeting for the home as a long-terminvestment. They had plans to lease

it to transient life forms, who wouldtreat it according to their own will. Aslandlords, they would watch the housewithstand many tests of time, then in turn,deteriorate with the passing of life untilthat moment when it could no longer serveanyone but them.

Living Homes agent Des Thai-Kneeconrmed everyones suspicions that one of

the latter three parties would bear the keysin the end. As to which of the three it wouldbe, the neighbours could only speculate.


42/53

43.

Home Open

For Sale: "A renovator's dreamonce in a lifetime opportunity!"


43/53

44.

hOme isa timenOt a

plaCe/maKe

YOUR-selF at

hOme.


44/53

45.

I recently discovered a journal I had written while travelling a fewyears ago and found this passage: part of my desire to travel, is that oneof the more intense emotions Ive felt is homesickness; this incredible strong desire

for home and the perfection of it all is an amazing manifestation which weirdly

is activated only by extensive travelling. I think this homesickness is as close tomeaning as Ive ever found.

Part I

A house, a garden

Are no places

They spin, come and go.

Their apparitions

Unfold in space

Other space

Other time within time

Their eclipses

Are no abdications:

We would be scorched

By the living ame of one of those moments

If it lived a moment longer

Octavio Paz

Home is not a location, a point on the earth with a longitude andlatitude, it isnt the house we grew up in, or the land that holds us;its an ever-fading memory. It is a house of experiences; of tender

discoveries, fresh hurt, and comforting arms.Our movements in life turn us towards home, through it, andaway again. Our paths are circular and tangential, away from

By

Barnaby Bennett:

Australasia

Barnaby is the Chief

Egg of Freerange Press.Nuff said.


45/53

46.

one home and towards another. As timepasses this centre shifts, relocates, dislocates,and splits into multiples. Everything is inmovement. Home is created by departureand separation, what was once one becomesmany. The self peers back to a timebefore this painful birth, of unity lost andfragmented. This separation is the illusionthat space plays on time.

Homesickness is badly named: its not illhealth, disease, misfortune; its a conditionof existence. Its the felt absence of thatwhich created us. Homesickness grows out ofphysical dislocation, a spatial separation. Itis the hereditary afiction of a wandering

humanity; the sweet horror of freedom orthe bitter curse of forced migration.

Part II

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Henry David Thoreau,Economy,Walden, 1854

Homesickness is an extension ofabsence. Australian author James Cowanwrites about contemporary artwork createdin the Balgo Hills area, deep in the desertin Western Australia. The artwork createdhere is an amalgam of many differentinuences: the presence of the landscape,

the metaphysical context of the Dreamtime,modern art practices, and, specically for

the Balgo artists, the absence felt by thedislocation from their from their geographicalhomeland hundreds of kilometres away.

...absence is the central tenet of Balgo art, and

a preoccupation of its artists. It is not the art of

presence, of cultural homogeneity, of Dreaming

certitudes which determines how they paint. They

are living a kind of Dreaming vacuum which can

only be overcome by going back to the country

of their imagination. Imaginary distance becomes

the hallmark of their work; it alone enables them

to return to the old nomadic trails of the past, to

ritual centres that are now rarely visited, to psychic

outposts that ensure collective and individual

spiritual renewal.

It is in this unique context that the artists

respond with their own experiences of lossand absence, and in doing so enact whatCowan calls one of the great acts of latetwentieth-century art. This is their strandof the story that unites humanity, ourcollective walk away from home. As heirsto perhaps the oldest unbroken traditionin the history of humanity their storyresonates powerfully. The sense of absence,and loss, is in this circumstance a result

of early globalisation and the powerfulforces of colonisation, but the story isan archetypal one repeated frequently

throughout our shared history.

The physical dislocation of a few hundredkilometres in a country the size ofAustralia is not much, yet it is enoughdistance to create a temporal division, agenerational rupture. As time marches on,

this last generation of artists with the livedmemory of their home in the desert beginsto pass, and their own individual acts of


46/53

47.

creation will become points of departurefor a new generation of artists. Thecreative potential of this separation isbeautifully described by Cowan:

Clearly distance had given a new poignancy toconception. A painting was no longer a re-creation,

but an act of reverie.

PT III

Time is what prevents everything from happening

at once.

Space is what prevents everything from happening

to me!

John Archibald Wheeler

I sit down, gingerly fold one leg over theother, and wedge a pillow or cushion undermy bum, gently cup my hands together,close my eyes and slowly and carefullywatch as the world around me closes andmy awareness settles on the in and out ofmy breath.

In the precious moments before my shortconcentration wanders and my back startsto ache, I feel a profound sense of returnand comfort, of homeness. It is remarkablethat the simple act of sitting quietly with eyes

closed can create such feelings of protectionand stability, like a snail with a portablehome. The world and all its charms andchaos becomes a gentle stream owing over

and around the rock of quiet observation.

This is home with no xed abode. The

English word abode means home or place of

residence, but interestingly it has anothermeaning shared with the word abide, whichis dened as an act of waiting. Buddhist textsuse the word abode to describe differentstates or characteristics of meditation.

The seminal Buddhist text the Brahma-Vihras (which translates as Abodes ofBrahma, or Divine Abodes) explains

four Buddhist virtues and the meditationpractices made to cultivate them: Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Empathetic Joy,and Equanimity. German-born Sri Lankin

Monk Nyanaponika Thera writes They arecalled abodes (vihara) because they should become

the minds constant dwelling-places where we feel

at home; they should not remain merely places of

rare and short visits, soon forgotten.

We dwell, for a time, in our own mind andbody. If our eyes are the windows to oursoul, then the body and mind are the homewhere this soul resides. Make yourself athome.

Referenced Texts:

1. Cowan, James.Balgo: New Directions.Sydney, NSW. Craftsman House, 1999.

2. Thera, Nyanaponika. The Four SublimeStates: Contemplations on Love, Compassion,

Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity. The WheelPublication No. 6. Kandy: Buddhist

Publication Society, 1993.


47/53

48.

The rst postal systems were said to have begun in Persia

ve thousand years ago, and while this method of communication

was choice, it was not yet cheap.

Regional postal systems in Mongolia, Egypt, Italy, China and India

developed through the millennia but were said to suffered fromslowness and problems from payment being required by the recipient.

The rst well documented postal service was that of Rome.

Organised at the time of Augustus Caesar (62 BCAD 14) the service

was called cursus publicus and was provided with light carriages calledrhed and drawn by fast horses. Additionally, there was another slowerservice equipped with two-wheeled carts (birol) pulled by oxen. This

service was reserved for government correspondence.

Genghis Khan installed an empire-wide messenger and postalstation system named rt within the Mongol Empire. Thissystem also covered the territory of China. These stations aidedand facilitated the transport of foreign and domestic tribute, andtrade in general. By the end of Kublai Khans rule there were morethan 1400 postal stations in China alone, which in turn had at theirdisposal about 50,000 horses, 1400 oxen, 6700 mules, 400 carts,6000 boats, over 200 dogs and 1150 sheep.

Today, it is astounding to think that if you have the correct address

and attach the right amount of stamps to a letter or package itwill get delivered to almost anywhere in the world. Prior to 1874international post was sent only to countries that had treatiesestablishing rules with each other. Imagine how complex this wouldbe now with 194 countries, if each of these countries had to have aseparate treaty with every other country for delivery -- there wouldneed to be 18,818 treaties!

In 1874 the Universal Postal Union was formed which established that:

1. There should be a uniform at rate to mail a letter anywhere in the world.

2. Postal authorities should give equal treatment to foreign and domestic mail.3. Each country should retain all money it has collected for international postage.

The UPU is the 3rd oldest international organisation and is a

TEATOAL

pOSTAL SySTEM

CHEAPANDCHOICE

AWARD

#4


48/53

49.

shining example of the efciency and

efcacy of global co-ordination.

The original treaty guaranteed that eachcountry would send the others post, andwas changed in 1969 so that countrieswould compensate each other for the weightdifference to allow for variations in sendingand receiving between countries.

Nearly 150 years after the beginning of theUPU, letters are steadily becoming a thingof the past. However, the internationalsystem set up for posting letters has set thestandard for the delivery of all physical

goods, which is growing with Internet usage.

As humans continue to move aroundthe world, away from home -- and oftennot back again -- the postal system is anexample of the best of human ingenuityand, more often than not, efcient

management of an incredibly complexsystem. Choice and Cheap!

The worlds

ostalsstems

emplo

more than

5 million

people,annuall

delivering

435 illionletters and

6 bo

rc.

Flag of the Universal Postal Union.


49/53

50.

The moral of Cain and Abel is peculiar. Adam and Eve givebirth to two sons: Abel and Cain. They grow up. Abel goes off towork across the land and raise sheep while Cain goes to work onthe land and plants crops. They present the results of their workto God who is for some reason pleased with Abel and not withCain. This dismays Cain, who later nds Abel in the eld and kills

him (some speculate that the true reason for the murder is thatAbel had the hots for Cains wife). Cain and God then have their

famous conversation:

The Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel?I know not, he replied. Am I my brothers keeper?Then He said, What have you done? Your brothers blood cries out to Me

from the ground! So now you are cursed from the ground that opened its mouth

to receive your brothers blood you have shed. If you work the land, it will never

again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.

Abel is often referred to at the rst martyr; the rst person killed

by the evil of humanity, a foreshadowing of the story of Christ.Strangely, God then promises to protect Cain, saying: whosoeverslayeth Cain vengeance will suffer vengeance seven times over.

Where is the moral in this? Abel pleases the Lord and nds himself

dead in a eld, while Cain displeases him and is marked with a sign

that promises him Gods protection.

Cursed, marked and banished, Cain wanders off to the east to theLand of Nod where he settles down and marries his sister, Awan.This results in their rst son, Enoch, whom Cain names the rst

Image details:

William-Adolphe

Bouguereau

The First Mourning

1888

cA

THE MURDERER/FARMER/

INNOVATOR

frEErAngEr

Of

THEiS

SuE:


50/53

51.

city after. He builds a house, and livesthere until it collapses on him, killing himin the same year that Adam dies (who wasapproximately 196 years old).

Its hard to nd a moral in this fable, yet

it is a story that reminds us of our violenthistory, of the steady rise of the city and theimplicit death of our ancestors life styles.A death that we continue to reap on thosehumans that still live directly off the land. Itreminds us of the origin of our greatestcreation, our best work of art, the city.The surplus provided by agriculture (and

the need to defend it) are often cited as thereason for the creation of the city, and thestory of Cain and Abel also has this seed.

Cain also reminds us of the potential evilpresent within us all and within all creations,the city included. He is a murderingtrouble-maker, and an agricultural, urbanand building innovator.

Cain-the-wanderer? Cain-the-farmer? Cain-the-agriculturist? Cain-the-builder? Cain-the-failed-architect? Cain-the-murderer?

I mean, Every one of us under some circumstances

could be a gas chamber attendant and a saint.Noam Chomsky

aUng sansUU KYiA quick nod to Ann Yung Sung who was

released from house arrest in November2010. She Yung Sung has spent 15 of thepast 21 years under house arrest at herhome in Rangoon, Burma, after her partywon the general election in 1990. We atFreerange admire and acknowledge herstrength and resilience. Its interesting thatthe effect of restricting someone to their ownhome is similar to banishing them -- it is arestriction of a fundamental freedom, and isunacceptable when it is for political reasons.


51/53

52.

Sub-edited by:

Emily Hollosy: Melbourne

Emily is interested in stories, cultures and

identity. She lives in Melbourne and is

involved in writing, editing or producing

various works for festivals, theatre, arts and

social commentary publications.

Kate Shuttleworth: Auckland

An interest in people is probably the reason

Kate works as a journalist the ability to

build a rapport and a level of trust has

meant many a good story has been toldabout true New Zealand characters. While

at home in New Zealand, Kate is as easily

at ease on any distant shore and is known to

indulge in a bit of sun, sand and heat along

with the odd bit of rock climbing.

Gina Moss: Wellington

G-Unit emerged on the New York scene

by independently releasing several mix

tapes. She has been writing and editing forFreerange since its conception and likes to

papier mach.

Contributors:

Minna Ninova (New York), Tom Zubrycki

(Sydney), Elizabeth Rush (New York), Joe

Cederwall, Rajarshi Sahai (Bhopal), Ross T Smith(Melbourne), Claire Hollingsworth (Melbourne),

Ben Brown (Christchurch), Hana Bojangles

(Wellington), Ruby Usa (California), Noel Meek

(Wellington), and Shakey Mo (Melbourne).

Photo Credits:

Barnaby Bennett.

Chief Egg and Editor

Irina Belova.

Designer

Freerange Vol.4 was brought to you by:


52/53

Pg 2-3: Interior shot of small house on

trailer built by Jenine Alexander. Find more

information at www.ForgeAhead.org

Pg 8: Exterior shot of small house on

trailer built by Jenine Alexander. Find more

information at www.ForgeAhead.org

Pg 11-13: Illustrations by Shakey Mo.

Pg 15: Screen shot from The Hungry Tide

directed by Tom Zubrycki.

Pg 16-17: Photo of Horizon.

Pg 20-23: Photos by Steve Duncan.(www.undercity.org)

Pg 24-25: Photos by Byron Kinnaird.

Pg 26-27: Photo by Shakey Mo.

Pg 29: Photo by Ingrid Macdonald in

Forced Migration Review, No 34, 2010

Pg 30: Picture from Robin Bronen in

Forced Migrant Review No 31. 2008.

http://repository.forcedmigration.org/

show_metadata.jsp?pid=fmo:4729 .

Pg 33-35: Photos of Lambess Family by

Noel Meek.

Pg 37: Chillies. Creative Commons.

Pg 38: 20K House, Rural Studio. Ross T.

Smith. 2008.

Pg 40: Photo by Shakey Mo.

Pg 42: Illustration by Claire Hollingsworth.

Pg 44, 46: North Otago A & P Show -

February 2011. Alexandra Clark.

Pg 49: Flag of the Universal Postal Union.

Pg 50: William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The

First Mourning. 1888. oil on canvas.


53/53

Documents

Freerange Vol. 4: Almost Home