We are all familiar with the oft repeated mantra, the
idea that our family, friends and community nurture us,
provide us with a supportive, safe place within which to become who we are. But is this true? Is it not possible that this sanctuary, this cocoon of belonging, in fact limits and prevents us from full self-realisation? In an interview with Judith Andrews, I discovered that we must step outside the familiar, the known, if we are ever to test the limits of the self and find a genuine sense of connection to the world and to others.
Judith Andrews is a third generation Australian whose
family has had a long tradition of an upper-middle class background. She, her sister, mother and grandmother all attended expensive private boarding schools and lived in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney; a closed world which provided the security for Judith in her early years to develop a sense of identity. This was to change.
We assume that we are searching for some sort of
unified, coherent self, which will allow us to be who we were meant to be. But what if we are different selves in different situations? Would that not render belonging a more complex and multifarious experience?
At the age of 14, Judith was exposed to a world outside
of her comfort zone. Her most potent memory of discomfort she described dramatically. Her boyfriend took her home to meet the family. She stood nervously at a foreign front door, in the unfamiliar suburb of Thornleigh, so different from her own home next to Double Bay. She was acutely aware that she had been thrust into an environment where she patently did not belong, and consequently, felt her identity was under question; should she remain true to herself, or attempt to conform and fit in with these people? Could she do both? Thus, this visit was the central motif of her tale of belonging and journey to self-discovery. However, it is undeniable that we all adhere to a selfdefinition that satisfies our self-image, a self who we wish to be. Judith Andrews employed the motif of seeing the self-reflected in a mirror with friends, finding a self that seems to reflect back a composition that we can live with a good reflection.
She recounted how the three sisters, dressed in low cut
tops, tights skirts and loud makeup, had welcomed her upstairs. Judith said that they had kindly intentions attempting to make me more like them, trying to make me look sexier. But sitting in front of the mirror, Judith saw herself surrounded by these different people, three porn queens and snow white as she wryly put it. This crucial moment is what I have chosen to depict in my visual representation.
From the back, the representation depicts belonging as a
black and white: either you belong, or you dont. But when you look past this, and into the mirror, it becomes apparent that belonging is in fact multi-facetted; Judith recognised herself, she was sure of her own sense of self: her reflection, which is represented by her outstretched arm. But she evidently did not belong with the three girls whose familial and cultural bonds connected them, represented by the gold chain in Judiths own words, she was no lesser, no greater just different in some human facet. Belonging, then, is not a singular event but a process we repeat throughout life, just as the self is a project under construction. And so I ask you. Do YOU feel like you belong here, in this very classroom? If you do feel you belong, is it an indication that your search for yourself is over? Although by belonging, we ARE able to better understand ourselves, it is the recognition of differences between the myriad of groups from which we DONT belong and the acceptance of these differences that truly allows us to develop a sense of who are.