Longing for home | Editor’s letter #32

‘Life began in a hospital, in a heated plastic box, where I spent weeks after having to leave the safe watery world of the womb too early’, Nicole Ex writes in her editor’s letter in the new winter issue of See All This: Make yourself a home. Read more here. 

Life began in a hospital, in a heated plastic box, where I spent weeks after having to leave the safe watery world of the womb too early. Perhaps it was this experience, coupled with the sudden parting from my twin sister, that was the source of my sense of homesickness as a child. The German word ‘Heimweh’ first appeared in a Swiss text dating from 1592. It is defined as an intense yearning (weh) for home (heim). As a child, I couldn’t stay away from home overnight without feeling abandoned. I preferred to stay at home, in the garden, or in my room, where I drew houses and fields of flowers.

It took years of training to cross that boundary between my room and the pavement. I first discovered the adventurous lives of others through unforgettable novels, and later it was my love of art that drew me into the wider world. That is still the lifeline that allows me to visit countries, cities and people, like architect and guest curator Bijoy Jain in Mumbai, to whom we posed what ‘hearth and home’ means to him.

Bijoy Jain and Nicole Ex in Jain’s studio in Mumbai, 2023, photo: Anke Riesenkamp

But what if we find ourselves cut adrift due to natural disaster, dictatorship or war? What is a home away from home (p. 110)? And is it possible to build a life outdoors? The incredible Islington Twins reflect on this question from the streets of London, their fixed place of residence. They share with us their daily routine and survival strategy, unparalleled in its mental adaptability and wisdom (p. 96). Reading their reflections, there is no other conclusion than to find a deep sense of home within ourselves. As Jain stated: ‘Home is where affection resides.’ It can be a hand, a dog, a tree, a work of art, a streak of sunlight, or the sudden appearance of the silver moon in the endless dark night sky (p. 117).

Read more in See All This #32: Make yourself a home
Order the issue here >

Header image: detail of František Kupka, The Beginning of Life, Study of Foetus in the womb, c. 1900, etching on paper, 34.5 × 34.7 cm, Centre Pompidou, Parijs