A phantom that inhabits me wherever I go

This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project

I am in the cafe and veil myself in the proficiency a cup of coffee and a laptop presents. Today I am ok, but I have dragged displacement about me like a weight or like a phantom that inhabits me wherever I go. Only in the creative process of my work is this distilled and centres me like an internal compass, and I transmute the phantoms in the act of being an artist. I am the daughter of two migrants, each from separate countries who both fled or were war damaged. I was born in England but moved to Ireland over 20 years ago. I have negotiated 4 cultures now but belong to none. I look to what dissolves these boundaries that people are so fixed on. When I make work, I am exhilarated, it is the only thing that dissolves the unbelonging I have felt all my life. The atmospheric silent invisible treacle that can bind me is also dissolved when I meet others like me and it has taught me to find a meeting place and empathic listening in all people I encounter and somehow people give me their stories. It’s like I have been an atmospheric barometer all my life to work out the nuances of what is going on. This habit comes from being a child in situations where you are having to learn ways of being other people have embedded in them from being born in a place of belonging. I try not to dwell on displacement anymore, but it is a dwelling, it is where we , the others, dwell.

A world without borders is what we should strive for

This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project by Nicola Anthony

Originally from a small town I have mostly lived in big cities in many countries all my adult life. I carry with me memories of inspirational people from many places and an awareness that now more than ever a world without borders is what we should strive for.

I ride an emotional roller coaster

This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project

I lived in the same house for 49 years and got married for the first time at 52 . Finding love like this was Grace alone .. to make it work required sacrifice.. much deliberation mixed with trust and faith allowed me to make a big move to the UK.

I ride an emotional roller coaster - harking back to how things were and how some things aren’t the same .. then I get that they can’t be the same even if I had stayed on .. everything is dynamic , and I am grateful for the many opportunities that have come. From my early teens my life was punctuated by farewells, as friends and family emigrated to various places in the world to leave the political unrest and later crime in our birthplace . Our community was diminished and I wept for the loss of potential and indeed the loss of the dreams and vision that we had of how we would be in our lives together.

Thanks to the technology that we have , I enjoy the connection from afar that my grandparents never had when 2 generations before they fled persecution.. when they left , they left everything behind.