Inspirations!

I particularly enjoyed this week's lesson because while we're trying to cover a huge wealth of material in a short time, there are loads of opportunities and ideas being generated, and I came away feeling really inspired! A lasting image I have is of Ania and Claire's conversation/interview, where Ania was answering Claire's English questions in Polish. It struck me as being particularly truthful and relevant to our work; Claire's questions were perfect, allowing us to understand what Ania was saying but still experience a sense of her homesickness and detachment, because the language barrier made us feel detached from her. It really moved me and I would love to incorporate something like that into our final piece.

Also, something Ania said in her blog made me think, as she talked about finding a universal experience of homesickness for our piece. Because it is such a broad and personal topic this will be a real challenge to achieve, but I keep coming back to our experiences of being at university as a central concept. We have such a wealth of current experiences and feelings to draw from, it would be crazy not to take advantage of it and use our present circumstance as an impetus for our piece. It also connects to my research topic, liminal spaces, as I've come to realise that university is actually a liminal space. While it is necessary for us to feel at 'home' here, the truth is that we are not permanently settling at university, it is merely a transitional phase that enables us to go from A (being a child, living at home) to B (becoming an adult, getting a job, starting our own families).

Alice Hansen