“Home is where the Heart is.”[1]
Dhanusha Ranapurwala is a student on the MA Creative Writing. In this blog post, she offers an insight into her work on a research project entitled Maisha Stories that was funded by the Impact Acceleration Account and focused on decolonising higher education through a collaboration between Diversity Lewes, Writing Our Legacy and the University of Brighton. The research team developed a series of workshops that took place at The Deport in Lewes and supported people from the Global Majority in Sussex to write stories about their sense of home.
Since I moved to this country from India over a year ago (which has been a lovely experience), feelings of homesickness have never really left. Most of my writing has been about the people I love, and the community I miss back home. Writing has become an outlet, and offers a profound way for me to connect with others who share the same feelings. As part of my work on the Maisha Stories Project, I attended one of the storytelling workshops that connected people with creative tasks to support them to feel comfortable in this country, away from their original homes and prioritised feeling comfortable in our own skin.
The Workshop:
Akila Richards, a Brighton-based poet and spoken word artist, led the workshop which had been organised between Writing Our Legacy, Diversity Lewes and the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing. Akila made sure that everyone’s heart felt as if it belonged in the room, and that people were able to explore memories of home using images, poetry and prose. People in the room often had their hearts set on a notion of home which wasn’t here in the UK, and described having to leave their home for a variety of reasons (some moved because they had to, and some by choice). Everyone present was assured that they were in a safe space, and were greeted by faces that had nothing but smiles to welcome you with.
The workshop had several exercises, starting with an icebreaker where we moved between columns of ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Maybe’ in response to the questions Akila asked us that related to home. After this task, we instantly opened up to one another. The next part of the workshop focused on writing about an aspect of home and what made it significant to us. Part of this exercise was concerned with drawing on memory and people were invited to read their pieces out to everyone in the room with each story being received with applause and compliments. Other exercises asked us to imagine our notion of home using emotion and metaphors which was freeing, inspiring people to really think about what home meant to them.
At the end of the workshop, everyone was handed a canvas and given pencils and pens with an invitation to draw their home.
What else can be done?
The workshop though impactful, was only a pilot project and more work needs to be done to further essential decolonising work in higher education. The research team have recently been awarded additional funding by the National Lottery to build on the best practice they established in the workshops and extend Maisha Stories beyond the initial project, with the aim of being part of pedagogic, social and cultural change. ,
–Dhanusha Ranapurwala
References
Brighton, University of. ‘Jessica Moriarty’, Accessed 29 July. https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/jessica-moriarty#:~:text=Dr%20Jess%20Moriarty%20is%20Principal%20Lecturer%20in%20Creative%20Writing%20and.
Copley, John Singleton, Watson and the Shark (1778), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Diop, David, At Night All Blood Is Black, trans. by Anna Moschovakis (London: Pushkin Press, 2020)
Ghosh, Amitav, Sea of Poppies (London: John Murray, 2008)
Lambert, Mrs. Mary. 1933. ‘Home is Where the Heart Is’, Poets, Poems & Poetry.
Legacy, Writing Our. ‘Misha Stories’, Accessed 30 July. https://writingourlegacy.org.uk/event/maisha-stories-no-place-like-home/.
Shire, Warsan. 2022. ‘Extereme Girlhood’, GetLit.
Shonibare, Yinka, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (London: Trafalgar Square, 2010)
[1] Lambert, Mrs. Mary. 1933. ‘Home is Where the Heart Is’, Poets, Poems & Poetry.
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