Finding home: Expressing Homesickness through Storytelling

What do you feel when you hear the word “home”?

Familiar landscapes that preserve childhood memories, a loving grandmother and her baked goods, friends who feel like family, a mother tongue–home has a different meaning for everyone. We tend to associate home with the feeling of comfort and security. For many, it feels natural to say “home sweet home” when we want to express the joy at returning home after a long time being away.

But what happens when home is experienced as unfamiliar, even traumatizing? What happens when the place we call “home” fails to make us feel safe?

In today’s context of globalization and migration, more and more people are living in countries not considered their own. Home becomes the missing piece. And although homesickness is a normal process that most people experience from time to time, being homesick feels like a lonely journey precisely because we don’t often express our feeling of missing home.

As such, the workshop FINDING HOME was designed as an interactive, conversational space where everyone is encouraged to join and share your life’s experiences, perspectives, and hardships. No matter where you’re from, how you identify yourself, or what you’ve been through, you are welcome to be here. Together in this workshop, we will practice telling stories and listening to stories, showing empathy and connecting to each other.

The workshop is led by Minh Chau Pham and Gulabuddin Sukhanwar.

Minh Chau Pham came to Norway from Vietnam at the age of 14. Torn between two cultures, two homes, Minh is deeply interested in matters relating to memory, belongingness, language, home and identity. During her Master’s program in English Literature at NTNU, she is captivated by the healing power of storytelling in nurturing a sense of home and community. FINDING HOME thus was born out of an ambition to give rise to stories of loss and resilience, so that they can now be heard.

Gulabuddin Sukhanwar is from Afghanistan, he now lives in Norway and works at the Literature House in Trondheim where he leads the Literature for Inclusion initiative. This project uses literary works from around the world to promote cross-cultural understanding through workshops, guest lectures, musical events, and public debates in the region.

The workshop is part of the Migration Literature Week 2021 organized by Literature for inclusion in collaboration with Trondheim friby, Hanna Musiol, Associate Professor of English at NTNU and NTNU’s research project TransLit: Sustainable Ethics, Affects, and Pedagogies led by Associate Professor of Literature in English, Libe García Zarranz and and Stella Mililli’s project (YA Refugee Literature:Developing Sustainable Literacy in the EFL Classroom  at NTNU).

Venue: Litteraturhuset, Kongens gate 2

Get your free ticket here.
Due to the Covid-19 situation there are a limited number of tickets available.