Free Time in the City (2019)
On a rainy Saturday we assembled in a gazebo on Site Square opposite Site Gallery in Sheffield. During the afternoon we invited people to sit with us and talk about their experiences and histories of migration and the places they call home. This audio is a 21:34 minute extract that came from our discussions over a three hour period.
The discussion was centred around the following questions/prompts, though they often led us elsewhere:
Where would you most like to migrate to?
Tell us about a place other than Sheffield that you call home.
Which areas or places in Sheffield do you feel most ‘at home’?
Topics raised in the recording are (chronologically):
Sometimes you’re not born in the place you’re meant to live
Family and loved ones being the place of ‘home'
Cultural environments make you feel ‘at home’
Home as your place of origin
Home as a place that reflects identity (both in the home and the wider social environment)
The importance of connections to a community outside the house as part of homeliness
Moving around helps you to know where home is
How people create their own belonging
The session was led by Dani Abulhawa and Lourdes Peroni on 15th June 2019, from 3-6pm and the recording was edited by Jay Platt.
Free Time in the City was commissioned by Migration Matters Festival, 2019, and kindly supported by City of Ideas, Site Gallery.