Aislinn F

Brief for Open Call on Home: There are physical and metaphorical places that give meaning to the word ‘home’. What does home mean to you? How does it inspire or manifest itself in your artistic practice? How has your idea of home and your identity been challenged, misconstrued, and/or transformed over time?

Home. Home? Home.

Take your pick.

For as long as I can remember, I was asked where I was “really” from. Mother Zambian. Father Irish… Northern Irish. I had an unexplained American twang. I was born in India, celebrating my first birthday in McDonalds in Delhi- or so the photos tell me. I used to explain these points every time someone approached me, until one day, another student bluntly replied “Who cares if you were born in multiple places”. Yes, you read that right.

Consequently, for years, I would simply reply “I am American”, which went believably hand-in-hand with my accent and got 98% of people to stop asking and prodding. It seemed that my being American always seemed to be more socially palatable than my actual story. Years later, I currently reply with “Northern Irish and Zambian” – and leave it like that, and reply with how I see fit and what mood I am in, at the time. This made me question what home is- Is home a specific place? Is it a person? Is it where my parents reside? Is it myself and what’s within? Is it possible to have multiple homes?

When we moved to Switzerland, I fell in love with the sounds of the French language itself. I took small steps into the world of Art Galleries in Geneva, and Paris.

Art as part of life. Art as part of story-telling. Art as expression.

Next, Zambia… a Home, at least for my mum. Africa, at last. Surrounded by my Zambian family. Ambuya, aunties, uncles, cousins, and so on. I saw living art all around me, but none of it was on canvas. It was in the streets, the markets, the families, the compounds. I spoke with my art teachers, asking basic questions about African art, about art in Africa.

Heartbreak. Time was up. It was time to go home, my dad’s home. Ireland it was to be. But north or south? North of South? Belfast. In preparation for the move, we visited a few schools in Belfast. It was up to my sister and I to choose; we were only twelve and fourteen at the time. We settled on the “Integrated college of Belfast”…only to find that “integrated” meant a school with both Protestants and Catholics…by no means an insignia of international or racial diversity or integration.

It was tough. I hated it. I missed my home in Zambia. I was now an oddity at the school where there were about three pupils like us – out of over a thousand students. I worked at my art. I worked at my French. I baulked at learning history of Ireland, geography of Britain and Ireland.

As well as “Where are you from?”, probing questions sought answers to Catholic or Protestant? Not always to your face, but the hints, the answers were already there. “Aislinn”, an Irish name- only Catholics would name their daughter in the way. Little did they know that it was my Zambian mother who fell in love with the name – “unusual”. I attracted attention – of the wrong sort. “Black Slave” and “Bla-Aislinn”…short for Black Aislinn.

A book called “Third Culture Kids” did the rounds at some point, promising a nirvana out of multiethnicity. That was the theory, but even it was confused over issues such as “home”.

My Belfast-based education, became a case of ticking the examiners’ preferred boxes regardless of any interest in the history and arts of the rest of the world. My desire, now almost passion, for Art remained untutored, unexplored.

After high school– I made it my mission to leave Belfast as soon as I could. I packed my things and moved to Manchester for university, then Newcastle. In each city, I was unable to shake off this thought that “surely there’s something more?”

For the eight years that I spent studying art and art history in Higher Education, I was able to shrug off questions like “Tell me about yourself?” with “I’m a student”. This became a blanket term that kept me from having to think about who I was and how I present myself to others. And after four years of build-up, I finally moved to the promised land: London. For me, London was meant to be this new city that everyone I had spoken to had sung about and praised- somewhere to find myself, meet like-minded others, and enjoy the plethora of things to do and see. London, a potential home, that would allow me to grow and be my true self unapologetically.

Unfortunately, this move to London clashed with the lockdowns of the Covid Pandemic. All of a sudden, we were locked up in our houses, forbidden and unable to enjoy what/ who London had to offer. I moved to London to take a Master’s degree in History of Art at a university that ended up being deceiving, where “African” in their title was used as a smokescreen – but that is another long and painful story.

Overall, I lost a lot of confidence in myself within this time as I felt that I had changed so much from the bubbly and indestructible student from before Lockdown, who was now constantly second-guessing herself and going through a never-ending artist’s block. Eventually by the end of the Pandemic era, I found myself saying, “actually, I am an artist” as I found a comforting little piece of home within my art.

During my first two years of undergraduate study, I dutifully created pieces of work, which in retrospect, left me empty and unfulfilled: floral drawings, textiles, and bits and bobs of photography. I very quickly became aware that it takes a lot of dedication and motivation for someone to decide to go down a creative path, yet I felt that my work had no meaning, I was just like many other struggling artists teetering at the edge of an abyss.

When I began to explore race and identity politics into my practice, my tutors were unable to support me, past repeating Yinka Shonibare or Sonia Boyce as artist references. Everything pointed to “white walls, white spaces, white wine”. My classmates would have pages of notes and advice from their peers/tutors whereas I would be lucky to have even a few sentences. I had to learn how to take charge of myself and my studies as no one else was going to. I did my artist research and delved into as much academia as I could that included Black artists, and African art.

I, therefore, discovered a lot about my heritage and being a Biracial Black woman constantly trying to fit in different environments. I was expected to articulate painfully specific artistic and thematic research, so that my tutors/hypothetical viewers would be able to understand at the very least, a small portion of my decision-making contexts.

Saying that my work is for “Black people” was rejected as being too limiting and not a large and inclusive enough audience to focus on. I was told that people don’t like to feel like they’re not included when they see artwork- this, a particularly telling remark as most exhibitions I visited had coincidentally yet unsurprisingly ended up being about white, male artists themselves but they depicted subjects which were not any form of representations of me or people of colour.

Even now, I continue searching for homes and places that give me solace. I think I will always want to seek somewhere new, to explore any more “homes”; to add to the list while my sense of identity and belonging continues to evolve. As the years roll along I will strive to fulfil my full potential, bit by bit.

What are some racial misconceptions / ignorant remarks people have made at you, about your culture or your identity?

Where are you “really” from?
If you could choose one side, would you be white or Black? White, right?
Your hair looked way better in the weave than your natural puffy hair.
You’re just the same as a mongrel, aren’t you.
I refuse to believe that there are Black people in Ireland.