A Journey of a Home
arriving somewhere new
A one on one audio walk, commissioned by Chester Performs and subsequently touring nationally and internationally. Nominated for The Spirit of the Festival Award (The Judges’ Award) Clonmel Junction Festival, Ireland. Selected for World Stage Design 2013.
The piece takes audience members on an audio walk where hopes come up against the reality of experience on a trip into the unknown – don’t worry, we’re holding your hand!
With themes of identity, border crossing and migration at the heart of the work, the piece deals with the ‘long moment’ created through the act of travelling, in which hope meets reality, the place where we simultaneously look towards the future and back at what we have just left.
In gently questioning what home is, the piece reflects on all things that make our home- family, friends, environments and possessions- the physical things which support, reinforce and bound our identity.
The piece is based on an autobiographical experience of a girl’s first travel to the UK and her settlement into the new culture. It specifically follows her steps from Sofia airport (in Bulgaria) to taking the plane to London Heathrow and the experience of first encountering the new, the known, the exciting and the intimidating at the arrivals gate before continuing on.
The main narrative of the girl’s journey to the UK is fragmented by a second voice who questions and reminisces on ideas of travel and its availability, home, language, time and what it might feel to be one of the many at the long queue before passport control.
A Journey of a Home takes approximately 16 minutes. The work consists of two elements- the audio performance walk and the interactive Journey booth, where audience members (including those unable to walk with us) can share their own journeys.
“Thank you Alister and Kat for taking me around in one of the most beautiful and introspective walks of my life. And to your beautiful voices and histories that remind me that any journey is always in origin the same. So exciting!”
audience member, Bath
“My journey? It’s physical. I haven’t gone many places, but I’ve travelled miles inside myself. Try, for instance, taking the wrong plane. Imagine not being able to ever get off. That’s the journey I’ve made. I was born on the wrong plane. The wrong body. The wrong gender. Only recently, I’ve gotten off the wrong plane. It’s scary, landing in a new place. But I know, here is where I belong.”
audience member, Ireland
credits
created and performed by Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie
commissioned by Chester Performs for Up The Wall
performance history
