Identities
Identities are in close relation with the environment where we inhabit and practice our daily activities. In Collins dictionary, identity is “all the qualities, beliefs and ideas which make you feel that you are different from everyone else, or that you belong to a particular group”. The subjective sense of self is defined and expressed not only by one’s relationship with other people, but also by one’s relationships with the physical environment that define and structure everyday life. Hetherington in “Expressions of Identity” explains this relation by combining space and identity politics. He exemplifies how altered identities can produce new spaces and demand a change in the established ones because identity as well as being about identification and organization, is also about spatiality … and involves identification with particular places.
The mainstreams and the substreams
Looking at the etymology of identity: a Character of what brings dif- ferent aspects in a person, or in a group. Recognizing other kinds of identities.
Sekundos are the first-gen-migrant’s children. Born with two or more passports. Accumulating -political/cultural- identities. This can extend to -all kinds of- identities at the edge of different others, overlapping them and creating new ones. Do identities need to be hidden, to adapt, or be practiced in a specific place? Or do they have a natural entitlement to urban space? Isn’t it necessary and healthy to keep a part of our identity in a protected privacy?
Spaces and places
Conceiving space as produced through a three-way dialectic between conceived, perceived, and lived space, Lefebvre’s work engenders the notion of place, which, representing a distinctive type of space, is de- fined by the lived experiences and identifications of people. The plac- es that are deeply related to one’s identity can engender a sense of belonging and attachment, where a person can “reveal the nature of the self”, and the environment in turn gives “information” back to the person thus reinforcing self-identity. It is important here to distinguish between “space” and “place”. While space is abstract and allows movement, place is a pause; space is transformed into place as it becomes more familiar, intimate, and valuable. A “place” is more defined with non material factors such as memories, emotional attachments and experiences, while “space” is more defined by material and structure. Therefore, different “places” can happen and be allowed in a single “space” when it is used multifunctionally.
Music: Ones private garden
Music embeddeds is a way to reflect on music created at the edge of different -cultural/political/sexual/visual/…- identities. Taking this as a consistent matter, they built new -musical- identities and thus new ways to make music, new ways to listen to music, new ways to experi- ence music. Through music, we would like to study how space/place is shaped or how space/place should be shaped, through identity.
Where is this music from? To whom is it destined to? Do identities have a location on a map? What is a border, if we can cross it infinitely in both directions? Is this music listened to in a specific place? At a specific time?
Time
Time is another important component when identity formation through space is considered. Most of the theories on space and identity agree that “…architecture and the built environment are key elements of the transmission of cultural identities from one generation to the next”. Place is expected to either be an agent in transmitting the identity to generations, or it is meant to project the consequences of cultural changes occurring through time, or expected to connect past and present identity. Although space is modified through time, it may also act as referent to past selves and actions, and for some people it maintains a link between past and present, providing a sense of continuity to their identity.
Memories
An important transmitting agent related with time in space is memory. Memory is a social activity. It functions as an expression and active binding force of group identity. Tied to and shaped by place, memory consists of an ongoing dialogue between the material and symbolic aspects of the past and the continuously unfolding present. Therefore, memory is also a process, which is continuously changing and unfolding. People’s senses of the past are continually reinvented by both themselves and larger structures of power to reflect new presents, and the desire for new futures.
Homes
Richardson argued that “home” is both a physical locale and a set of practices; home can be thought of as an existential experience that is entangled with the materiality of place. Here we see how a sense of “home”—that is, belonging to people and place—though emerging out of physical location, is a feature of the imagination. As hooks describes, “bringing my Kentucky ways with me wherever I made homeplace sustained my ties to home and also made it possible for me to return home”. Here, the materially derived aspects of place were imaginatively transported across space, providing hooks with a sense of place that, though inextricably tying her to her home state, mapped onto other, temporary locations she inhabited, transforming them from space to place. For, indeed, as Solnit reminds us, “we are often in two places at once. In fact, we are usually in at least two places”.
Goals
To create an audio(-visual) format that can combine theorizing on topics related to identity and origins while adding personal testimonies and sharing diverse music intimately related to the topics. Through this format, the final goal would be to offer an easy to access platform with interesting and entertaining content that our colleagues from here and elsewhere can identify with.
At the same time, the development of the format should allow external people to take part in the project and develop their own episode on a subject that is of interest to them while collaborating with our group for the editing and publication. Interested people could take part in workshop sessions.
Library
SekundoS 