Living in a foreign culture we become defined by our sense of who we are at home - our national identity as a part of ourselves gets sharpened by migration, rather than blurred. But what if when we return to our home nation, our cultural base, it isn’t as we remembered it? How profound would that feeling of estrangement be, and how would we deal with the realisation that the culture on which we had based our sense of foreignness was now itself foreign to us?
Re-integration, the first issue of KUA, will explore this profound sense of estrangement through a series of conversations with returned migrants, documenting their journeys of the various stages when a new relationship with the place they used to call home is formed. Each interview will be available not just in print, but as a sound file online, and while the print issue will contain just a selection, Re-Integration marks a jumping off point for a growing archive of transnational experience that may be added to in perpetuity, charting this ever-evolving experience. The interviews in the print and online edition will be framed by a series of curated found images, essays and artworks.
The first issue is generously supported by Asymmetry Art Foundation and co-produced by Chisenhale Gallery and Delfina Foundation.
■ Table of content
Doug Aitken, Migration (empire)
Alberto Bougleux, Ten hours away from home
Dr Valentina Mazzucato, Meaning-making during ‘home’ visits
Hana K. Ohnewher, KUA story 1/6
Joshua Yang, Huiet-Omega / Alpha-Kiuk
Kengwu Yerlikaya, Identity Issue (000)
Xenoangel, The Zone
■■ Life story oral interviews on Soundcloud
Kathleen Bomani, curator and self taught historian
Obi Abuchi, motivational speaker, author and leadership consultant
Jacqui Barrowcliffe, visual artist and art therapist
Wei-Yun Lin-Górecka, author and translator of Polish literature
■■■ Collaborators
Lara Lynn Baclig, social media and copy editor
Jeanne Constantin, publication designer
Yu’an Huang, Founder, curator, editor
Marwan Kaabour, visual identity designer
Sasha Perera, sound stamp
B5, 52 pages, soft cover.
Limited print run of 250 copies, 50 available to public for collection only.
Request your free copy + postage.
Printer Cassochrome Printing, Belgium.