Introduction to Home: An Exploratory Journey with Young Somali-Australians
Caitlin Nunn
» read essay
Home: An Exploratory Journey with Young Somali-Australians
Tamsin Sharp & Collaborators
Overview: As the first generation of young people growing up in an emerging immigrant community, the Somali-Australians who passed through adolescence in the first decade of this century were pioneers. Forging their own paths through the spatial, socio-cultural and emotional terrain of Somalia(n) and Australia(n), they created new cartographies of home. Home: an exploratory journey with young Somali-Australians both reflects and constitutes this process. Emerging out of a collaboration between researchers, artists, and Somali-background youth, Home: is an audio-visual work that integrates documentary, acted scenes, interviews and photographs to chart the complexity and dynamism of producing and inhabiting home. The outcome is a polyvocal and multisensory map that takes the viewer into the homes of young Somali-Australians.
Acknowledgements: Home: An exploratory journey with youth Somali-Australians was produced as part of the Good Starts Arts research project, funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant in partnership with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture, under the leadership of Chief Investigators Professor Sandra M. Gifford, Dr Ida Kaplan, and Dr Lorraine Mortimer.
Caitlin Nunn is a researcher in the Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on the experiences of migrants and refugees, particularly in relation to identity and belonging, practices of representation, and generational change and intergenerational relations. Much of her work involves collaborative and arts-based research practice. Home filmmaker Tamsin Sharp is co-founder of Australian video production company Singing Bowl Media. Her work encompasses short films, documentaries, music videos and video artworks, and includes work produced alongside communities including indigenous elders, culturally diverse young people and people with disabilities. Tamsin has won a number of awards for her work, including from Tropfest, the South Australian Film Commission, and the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
