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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.

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