Homebodies In November 2007 I took part to the Homebodies conference as key speaker. The conference organized by Annabelle von Girsewald and chaired by Marko Daniel (Curator of Public Programmes at Tate Modern), was exploring the notion of feeling or not feeling at home. Press Release: Homebodies is about complex situations of not feeling-at-home with and within real and imagined space. International artists, curators, and architects are contributing to this process-oriented project to reconfigure the notion of 'home'. Starting with a conference, the results of productive exchanges will determine how the project further develops into 3 basement exhibitions in San Francisco, Frankfurt am Main, and London. On the first day of the conference, thinkers such as Frederick J. Kiesler and Gaston Bachelard will be revisited in the light of discourses surrounding 'the home'. On the following day, meanings will be made through dialogue with curators and visual and performing artists about what it means to be 'at-home'. Francesca for Homebodies: My contribution to the conference was in the form of a paper entitled 'Desire to Belong’ that I read whilst projecting images from my installation The Way We Were. "I am an architect and an artist... or neither of them? I am Italian but do not live in Italy. I dream in English. I do not know where I belong to. Where is my Home?" The paper sought to draw an autobiographical account on the subject of belonging- intended as both a physical and mental journey- supported by an analysis of related contemporary psychoanalytical and critical theories. It discussed how the Lacanian notion of the fragmented body can be seen as a starting point for describing the sense of division and disunity of the individual that does not know where or what to belong to. The paper goes further in analysing my personal experiences in light of contemporary theories, by bringing to the debate issues of temporality, language, identification with the context, homecoming, nostalgia, sense of being. To support my claims of this emotional journey towards what I can call home, I did refer to theorists such as Bachelard, Kristeva, Freud, Lacan and Źiźek. For information on the ongoing Homebodies project, please visit the site annabelleshome.eu

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