"To go away from home generates new feelings, so you try to test it, what’s this feeling? What’s home meaning? Home is land? A feeling? An environment, an atmosphere? Home is safety? People...? Now, home for me is tenderness. When I become so tired and want to sleep I need this tenderness. I need to feel that I’m in my house. But I’m not in my house. This is not my house. This is not my land, at the end. Because I’m in a changeable situation. Every day I face many changing situations. I don’t know what time I will stay here… It’s a hard situation. I resist all those feelings and keep calm and speak to myself: 'Ula, you are very strong!' I try to go forward and not think emotionally. Try to see the reality, here, and try to adapt yourself. I try to live positively, flexible, to be more strong, but… try to find a corner where I can be weak sometimes. To rest. To have rest. This tenderness."

Ula Sulaiman

[extract from the 8th chapter of BERTH SONGS and the accompanying video piece FORREST]

A home for me would be the light filtering through the attic window of my grandmother's house. Neither my grandmother or her house are there anymore, but they are a light shining within me. 

Homewant for me is time stretched out on the lawn in the shade, fresh grass that I trample in a frenetic rush rather than enjoying. To slow. To pause. To quiver. 

Marco Ius

I have not been back home for more than 10 years because of the war in Ukraine. Now I weep, but tears remind us that we are alive, and so there is always hope that one day we can return home.

It's not just the place that you miss of course, but the people (many of whom are no longer with us), your mother tongue, the energy of the place. I miss the SUN and AIR of my home, the smells, the flavours, the jokes, grandma's kitchen. I had a beautiful life, I was so happy! So very very happy! The tragedy is that you get used to living with this wound and you no longer acknowledge the pain because you've adapted to this condition. People get used to everything, both the good and the bad, and I get used to it through no choice of my own. Thank you for opening your hearts to such profound matters, which we sometimes fear to delve into lest we fall and get hurt. I will no longer hide my loss.

Alëna Igorevna

From exile to exile I try to convince myself it is just another mile. To lose, to find, what these hands desire, a home, a land, eyes that behold like I was never held before, from exile to exile, when and who to calm, this never ending, ravaging, internal fire?

Samaher

Home for me is where I feel loved. It is not the walls, it is how you feel connected with everything around. At 'Home' I may have physical pain but I am at peace emotionally.

For me being away from home is not being far from the walls, it is the feeling that you are away from the 'things' that value your presence unconditionally, and vice versa.

I wish no one has to be deprived of Home for any reason!

राजु Raju, Kathmandu Nepal

A home for me would be seeing the tower on the hill overlooking the town where I was born as we approach in the car, admiring the river running between its mountains, rushing up the double-decker staircase to get the front seat and watch the city's bustle from the window, listening to some old songs, feeling the scrunch of the sand and the cold of the sea on my feet while dazing at the horizon, and, of course, chatting with my family and friends, wherever we are. Strangely, the city I currently live in doesn't feel like home, but maybe it will once I leave.

Homewant for me is the unintended estrangement from the people I love.

Athénaïs

A home for me would be a warm cosy place where I feel good! Where there would also be other people with whom I could share daily life, projects and much more. Home is also the natural world and ...

... sometimes I wish I was alone, by myself, in a big, bright room without walls that merges with the lush vegetation.

Agnieszka Fiejka

A home for me would be where my heart is. And it is often in more than one place at any given time. Home is fluid, it changes with time and evolves with people with whom I cross paths. Home for me would be crossing bridges. Literally and figuratively. 

Home is missing in that the memories and dreams blur into one faint landscape. Home is missing in that there is always something or someone that you wish was with you.

Özgür

A home for me would be a safe place, somewhere to rest, to relinquish, to make space for someone, to host and be hosted, to welcome and to replenish in order to give life to something else.

Homewant for me is that the scattered roots do not connect in a single place. A place changes and ‘home’ remains a memory, a destination, a feeling.

A home for me would be a city like any other.

Home in that the feeling to go back is missing.

Zri

Home for me is an emptiness that cannot be filled, a dull call from my roots longing for home even when home is no more.

I miss the sounds of shared everyday things, the daily gestures that gave meaning to the day. I miss feeling whole.

A home for me would be somewhere the space feels like an extension of your body. Where the people you love always feel welcome. Waking up to the voices of those I love. Waiting to have dinner together. Learning to be alone. The dinner that celebrates my return.

Homewant for me: doors open, hands outstretched. All places seem to have been built for anyone, except you. The feeling of being able to go everywhere, but not being able to access anywhere.

A home for me would be my grandfather's gaze, encouraging me and giving me strength without needing to say a word, my rock, source of curiosity towards the world. Home is where there is no prejudice but attention, care, patience, openness. Home is a picnic, watching the clouds, the sun warming me and giving strength to my bones. The wind that tousles my hair and gives me the idea of freedom, of this being a world for all, a place of peace and sharing. Home for me is Sicily where I have relatives and feel truly alive.

Homewant for me is feeling judged by people I don't know, who criticise on the basis of hearsay. Homewant is talking with others when they're using their phones, without being present; I witness a sense of frustration in a world swallowed up by technology and social media; there is no longer any distinction between what is real and what is virtual. Cold, sterile and easily misunderstood messages. Unaccommodating people who are pro social media: everyone has to have their say, but it's not necessary – it'd be enough to just be there.

A home for me would be a place where the fragments of stories and people – of shipwrecked monsters and grieving ghosts – can coexist within a space of play. A space where the boundaries are demarcated by the smell of milky coffee and cut grass.

Sometimes it seems merely a reflection in the water, a kind of island that isn't there. A space dreamt of, sustained by the hopes of sailors lost in the ocean. A spectre that becomes all the more real, the more it is fuelled by a melancholy that has no earthly origin, nor in the waves of the sea, but in the empty space left by the small stars in the sky.

Jan Mozetič

A home for me would be to go back in time, when I was far away, with my siblings, having fun as children, making tents in the backyard, enjoying ourselves with little.

But it's not possible.

Home for me is taking care. Family, friends, lovers, it doesn't matter who, but the feeling of being free to be oneself, embraced in one's fragility. It's caring for another because we care for each other.

No one ever talks about how it feels when your home is emptied of the people you care for most. My siblings have all left to go elsewhere and when they return for those short periods, my heart fills up and every time they leave they take a piece of my heart that belongs only to them, and I feel the hole.

A home for me would be having the people who make me feel secure and comfortable near me. Even if I am far from the physical place I call home, knowing that those people are in my life makes me feel that I have a place to return to – they are my home.

Being far from home means losing that security and confidence in ourselves. Home is missing in that the kinds of place and atmosphere that allow us to feel at ease can become lost.

‘I light a small candle and it's the closest thing to home I can feel in my eyes.’ I wrote this ten years ago among rugged mountain profiles. Today I would say that home is my skin in its tenacious nakedness, in this port, in its quivering of voices.

You separate yourself from me, I separate myself from you, they separate us from them. The earth is parched and numb. And the glances declare it. The absurd reigns warlike everywhere. Love dries up. I find no shelter. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Ottavia Salvador

To my son, to my daughter,

You ask me where is home? Home is the burrow where you take refuge, it is the earth that nourishes you, it is the hand that reaches out to you; home is also the moment you open the door to another and offer what you have. Is not this the earth?

Be fluid because there are no foundations.

Elisa

Home for me would be the illusion of living in the places and with the people of our memories, they belong to us, they are who we are.

Homewant is the fragility of the present, the advancing of tomorrow cloaks and distances us from the fleeing of the past.

A home for me would be the streets I know by heart, the forest paths I smell, the open sea, the books on my bookshelves, the light throughout the day.

Homewant for me is my friends from my previous lives, from many walks of life, whom I keep in my heart.

I grew up in a city by the sea. When there's the sea, I feel a little more at home. And I breathe. Without the sea I feel I'm suffocating. Home is a sigh of relief, a release. Homewant is tension.

Home is a perception, home is within me, I am home. Within me (or you) you can find the love of family and the gratitude of those who have placed their trust and opened their hearts to you. You can find the hugs and smiles of those who have gone as well as those who are still here. You can find the traditions, languages, knowhow, legends, adventures, and strength of our ancestors. You can find the skies under which you have dreamt and the meadows upon which you have slept. I open this house and let you in: if you look closely, every stone speaks of me and speaks of everything.

Homewant is pain and anger, abandon and isolation. When the ego prevails there is only you, and there are too few stones to build a house. You're inside a ruin, you feel vulnerable, and afraid you drift aimlessly.

Lisa Iannascoli

A home for me would be the place where those I love are. The place doesn't matter, just who you're with.

I miss home because those who were always there no longer are.

A home for me would be the place where I feel myself, accepted for who I am in a fraternal embrace of love and tenderness.

Homewant for me is feeling left alone in the grip of my vulnerability, abandoned and forgotten by everything and everyone.

A home for me would be a personalised container of shelter, closed on three sides and open on the front, home is also an offer of sharing.

Miriam Pertegato

A home for me would be a safe place, a collection of people who allow me to be myself without being judged. A place where I'm not afraid to be myself, where I can experience all my emotions without feeling guilty. Home for me is warmth, friends and carefreeness.

Homewant for me is that nobody really has the chance to be who they are without being judged. My homeloss is that no one feels like a member of a community anymore. Many feel alone in a world that grows ever larger and more imposing. Nobody is free to make mistakes any more.

A home for me would be... me. A place where I rediscover my centre, where time stands still, where my gaze lingers on the little things, where I feel the sun warming me, where the wind whispers faraway voices, where the world lives a life of its own. I marvel at this beauty that surrounds me, and how much faith I have in myself in that every change, every weather, every misfortune is part of life. Everything is perfect, everything turns to home.

Homewant is everything becoming grey and life loseing meaning, routine takes hold of me, my body detached. Homewant is no longer being surprised by anything. Every place can become a home when I'm master and explorer of myself.

Manuel Laspy

A home for me would be a place to feel free to express myself, to think, to act, to listen to myself... To carry myself for others.

Homewant for me is the fear of trying to be myself, which blocks me from dealing with even the most mundane situations, not having the confidence to express myself.

A home for me is resting in front of natural environments, like sometimes I do. Laying along a river and listening to the flowing water, birds and the typical sound of trees dancing in the wind. Embracing the nostalgia and going through all those memories that come along. 

Society always goes too far and too quickly, so that all the words are not pondered and all the thought just run into our minds, without being valued, causing an enormous sense of loneliness and loss.

Lorenzo (geno)

A home for me would be the place where I sleep and I eat.

Homewant for me is no nature around me.

A home for me would be a new nest, balanced between travelling and staying put, the mountains in front of me, my 12-pawed family, wholeness, life, love!

Homewant for me is missing all the hugs, smells, sounds and laughter, the warmth on my face and the wind in my hair, the sea on the horizon and cicadas singing in the background, I miss my friends, family, history and memories, the absences, the love!

Federica Massari

A home for me would be the place where I feel at ease by myself and in company, the place where I take refuge, warmed by my surroundings and where I welcome those who cross its threshold.

The person who imparted the ‘value of home’ to me is no longer here.

Francesca

A home for me would be that place wherever and with whoever has helped me feel loved, supported, nourished and encouraged. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours who have helped through the happy times and difficult times of my long life.

Those who shaped my childhood are missing from my life now yet live on within me, deep, deep in my soul, so clearly in my memory banks, that I’m still "at home", wherever my place of residence may be, and I have been fortunate enough to have always had one, a place of comfort and stability. How blessed am I? Hard to find a photograph as our family didn’t have a camera, but I found this one of my sister Sheila and I taken by our Uncle Tom in our paternal grandparents garden in Denton Burn, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Judith Johnson

A home for me would be a place where I can be myself, where there is love, trust, true mutual respect. Where they understand you without words. DOM ♥ ДOМ True homes aren't walls, but people who love you.

My homewant is a tear from my eye now, sometimes I'm afraid I won't ever be able to return, but I remain hopeful! I'm from Lugansk.

A home for me would be family, not just that of blood but that of the heart, of authentic relationships ... the place where you are well, not just a physical place but above all a place in the world where you can be your truest self.

Homewant for me is ties fraying, watching people drift apart.

A home for me would be any station at dawn.

Homewant is every one-way ticket only producing another.

Home is missing in that I'm a stranger to myself.

A home for me would be the overwhelming feeling of relief when I cross the threshold of a space which saw me grow up. It's indescribable. I'm not saying I can be completely myself there, but I can lower the barriers I put up when others are watching me.

Homewant is not knowing that space, not knowing where everything is and not worrying how I move because I'm familiar with every centimetre of a home that's always been the same, forever.

A home for me would be the place where I find myself, from which to leave and to return to, the refuge where I can rest and from which to watch the world, where I can reflect and think and plan a future.

Homewant for me is having too many homes: I no longer know where I belong. I long for the person who welcomes me and who returns to me.

A home for me would be falling asleep immediately because I feel safe. To be myself because I feel loved no matter what. Eyes that hold my gaze and welcome it.

I've been without a home since I was a child, since I felt alone, even in the company of others, since I sought someone interested in how I am, for real.

A home for me would be the only safe haven I can return to after ruining everything ... the origin of all my actions and the departure point of all my future.

I took this photo at home two years ago. My sister was playing a silly game with our hen: they were pretending she was hatching eggs. At home the light was always like that, warm, familiar, but never too bright. At that time it hadn't yet crossed my mind to come to Italy. Then things changed: my sister and I went our separate ways, far from home, and the hen died of an illness. It is a picture that cannot be taken again, but the warmth of my family has remained inside me, like something that runs in my blood. It is what pushes me forward, and at the same time gives me the strength to look back.

Haobing Xue

A home for me would be returning to the places of my memories, to the age of innocence, when the world seemed so beautiful through the eyes of a child. When time seemed to last longer and you didn't worry about having to run, except perhaps after a ball.

I am losing confidence, I feel lost within myself, immobile, while the walls of my home seem to grow smaller.

A home for me would be a table covered with a pretty tablecloth, that you can see has been washed many times, for all the lunches when the family got together. A lunch beginning with a broth, very hot, then something prepared by grandma, dessert, and above all lots and lots of laughter.

Homewant for me is coming home, opening the door, and it often being empty.

A home for me would be somewhere there's always an open door for a chat and a glass of wine.

I miss the space and simplicity within a world without sensitivity.

A home for me would be a place with doors open, where there's time to meet up and take care of one another. A place that evolves and allows space for change. A place where you can stay and from which you can set off.

I keep the doors closed and see closed doors. And I fear change. And I struggle to set off.

Leo

A home for me would be lots of warmth and love, together with loved ones.

Homewant for me is being alone, isolated and shut inside with my thoughts.

A home for me would be a safe and dignified environment where I could be with people I love regardless of kinship.

Homewant for me is the community where I live not sharing my idea of home.

A home for me is a point of view, the point of view. Home should be love. Home is protection. Home will be nostalgia.

Homewant for me is when the fatigue and breathlessness of distance prevails ... a single, small breath of suffering.

A home for me would be the possibility to go back and retrieve Dad's old typewriter, which I abandoned naïvely during my definitive relocation. Years later I bought an identical one which I now have on display, and every time I pass by and look at it, I apologise to my Dad and his Olivetti Lettera 32 – because both are gone.

Homewant for me is the smell of 'piadina' that's been lost for many years now. I still yearn for that sensation every time I go to the Romagna region, and relish with my sense of smell, rather than the mouth, that scent that smells of familiar childhood that vanished decades ago, making me feel good even if only for a moment. The serene memories of childhood, even if linked to a smell or a banal gesture, remain indelible in my mind and heart. There they are, like prehistoric graffiti, ready to be rediscovered and appreciated at any time. They are my past and my history that have always accompanied me and made me who I am.

Gianni Chiarelli

A home for me would be the family home that's no longer there, which was sold but which remains lodged in my heart. A paradise lost! Life, youth, memories, loved ones I carry in my heart.

I've rebuilt a nest. A place I love, but 'home' is still that other place. A place to which I return in thought and which is now mine alone.

Alessandra Cianelli

A home for me would be somewhere you don't have to speak to understand each other.

Homewant for me is that we have no memory.

A home for me would be somewhere you're asked if you've eaten, if you've slept well. Where at the end of the day you can find a hug – or offer one. It's a sensation, a place that's more emotional than physical, it's a ‘where’ that can only be described by what it feels like to be in that place, and to leave it, to see it change. 

A home for me would be where we can strip off all the things we feel we need to wear to face the world.

Homewant for me is not feeling accepted, well-come (well-wanted). I feel invisible, or too visible, I can't find a sincere connection, a moment or place where I am secure, somewhere I don't have to define myself at all costs, to present myself.

A home for me would be the possibility of recognition and the possibility to share.

It's difficult to recognise oneself.

Home for me would be the connections we have with other people.

Our connections cease to be.

A home for me would be a building or a place that activates tranquillity and serenity, where your freedom can be fully expressed. The place can also be errant or transient and determined by one or more individuals around you.

A particular homewant of mine is a group of people I can't often see for lengthy periods of time.

I only get to go home a few times a year, so every return is a great emotion. For me, home is peace, serenity, love. In particular, my home is surrounded by large, centuries-old oak trees, which offer a safe haven from external forces.

I miss that grassy smell, the flowers blooming in spring, the being in the shade of those big oaks, hugging my loved ones and my cats. I miss the visceral bond I have with this place.

A home for me would be the smell of Grandma's mint sauce. The lemon tree with the pomegranate tree next to it. My dog's paws, forever, on the parquet floor. Her embrace. Physical roots cannot be relocated, yet they remain precious within me. My body is my home.

Valentina

A home for me would be a world, a space, where people can express their emotions without judgement, without fear. Where one can 'feel', where emotions meet beyond words. A home of free people.

Homewant for me is the lack of freedom to express yourself, with your actions and emotions. There's can be no home if there's no freedom of emotion and love.

A home for me wouldn't be a fixed place, nor even a person, but that moment in which you feel good with those you have around you, including yourself: home would be that moment of happiness, of joy and contentment.

It's complicated to be the person you want to be, to find yourself and the right company.

A home for me would be a transitory form that evolves over time and with the unfolding of one's life, its interior constituting love, peace and freedom.

Homewant for me is missing the three fundamental principles of life: love, peace, freedom.

Francesco C.

A home for me would be being where there are people that love me, and where the people that I love and trust are.

Homewant for me is missing the hugs of my parents and seeing my nephews growing up.

A home for me would be the most familiar place where I can completely unwind. With family and loved ones and my kittens for company. Home is an infinitely inclusive place that allows me to do everything. It is a place where I can take a break from my hectic life and recharge my batteries.

Now I'm in a foreign country and maybe I don't have a real sense of 'home', but I nevertheless take refuge by returning to the home in my heart.

Zhang Ze

A home for me would be the smell of salty brine, watching my dad knead a pizza, photographing sunsets over the sea and the aroma of a summer barbecue.

Homewant for me is my heart lightening: every moment spent with my parents is invaluable, a resource and a blessing that with the passing of the years will eventually disappear...

Alessia

A home for me would be a safe place. Warmth. Sharing. Being welcomed. Well-being. Fusion.

Homewant for me is separation, loneliness.

Giusy

A home for me would be to still have you here in the sweet unfolding of time, in timeless harmony... the voice of mother who reassures, taking care, to whom you can tell everything... or almost everything... advice given for your own good... imparted with wisdom... the laughter of a playful father, stolen too young... to whom you weren't able to show how far you've come thanks to him.

Homewant for me is having grown up too soon... having left the dolls with the little ones, when I was still a child myself... to go off to work without looking back... there is no longer the get-together, the family gathering around the table on Sundays... mum's handmade gnocchi... and her camomile tea that cured everyone and everything because it had a secret ingredient... love.

M.T.

A home for me would be a place where I feel safe, where I can rest, not just physically but mentally too. A happy place, a light surrounded by darkness.

Homewant for me is feeling lost, far from anywhere familiar.

The smell of the forest. The light filtering through the branches. I continue to put one foot in front of the other. I'm with my people, I'm present, I'm in the moment. I'm in the here and now. I'm home.

A home for me would be a place where I always feel understood.

What you lose can't always be retrieved, yet you often fail to grasp that.

A home for me would be the assurance of finding yourself under a roof that protects you from the world.

Homewant for me is being without that which you've shut outside your front door.

A home for me would be a feeling. Not just a physical place, but a space where I can be myself. It is shelter, protection, but also a place of imbalance and uncertainty. Sometimes mysterious, sometimes tight. It can also be wonder, discovery, return. At home I lose myself and then find myself once more. I hurt and heal, again and again.

Homewant for me is the missing people, the missing flowers, the light, the fresh living air, the meadows, the trees, the green. The missing animals.

Home for me is having someone in your heart.

There is no harmony with life, with nature, we're not united.

E.C.

A home for me would be being with Roberta!

Homewant for me is whenever she's not around!

A home for me would be feeling safe, feeling protected, knowing that I have made the right decisions, having no regrets, feeling no sense of loss. Home is calm, slow, trusting, my place.

Homewant for me is my lost roots: without them I often feel weak, inadequate, a little lonely.

A home for me would be where I was born. What I call "Luvigliano City", even though it is only a hamlet in a relatively small municipality. Even if it is remote, often silent, predictable in the curves of its hills, it nevertheless surprises me every single day of my life. I love my home.

Homewant for me is wanting to fulfil my vocation. I would like to find home in the heart of someone who, for me, is already a little bit home. I would like the desire that animates my days to become presence...

Mariaelena

A home for me would be the sea. A space all my own. Tenderness.

Homewant for me is the lack of freedom to express who I am.

A home for me would be a place where I can be myself, without filters, without fears. Peace after a long day... a point of reference... a safe haven, a physical space to return to.

A home for me would be that place of my dreams. I've never been there, but I used to dream about it. Some of my friends were already in the place I envisioned.

I've never had such a home with my friends.

Caiyun Ma

A home for me would be a place where I could feel truly at home. Where the people I see and meet are similar to me and recognise me as part of the group. Where people speak a language that is mine, where the songs address issues that are mine. A place where I am loved, respected and considered.

I don't feel free to express myself because then they tell you to go back to your own home. I try but I'm not accepted simply because I'm different.

A home for me would be any place where I feel free to express myself authentically without having to give another impression that differs from my spontaneity. Where a glance is enough to understand each other with a complicit smile, where diversity is not a seed of judgement but of possibility.

To exist, I have to comply, reflect, sculpt my intentions and nullify myself.

A home for me would be a den where I can take refuge to escape the excess of stimuli imposed by social life.

Homewant for me is missing the powerful but discreet warmth of true friends and 'real' family. Homeloss is love lost.

A home for me would be a welcoming place.

Homewant for me is that they make fun of me at school.

A home for me would be that which I can't find anywhere else.

Homewant is not finding what I'd find at home.

A home for me would be a world where people have freedom to dream, to be and to live. Home is always being a child. Home is utopia.

Homewant for me is not being allowed to dream in this world: you're born with a label you carry all your life.

A 23-year-old child