memory and belonging

Textile-based arts have long occupied vexed territory, characterised as being between binaries such as high and low art, amateur or professional practice, and craft or hobby. As a genre, it is often seen to sit on the fault lines of fine art, fashion and dress. In this ‘and/or’ space, textile art affects a kind of rupture to its attendant binaries where it can eschew rigidly defined classifications through its tendency toward cross-pollination. And, although it holds a well-documented position at the sidelines of the art historical canon, textile art has the distinct advantage of crossing class divisions even while being implicated within its own histories of gendered and racialised labour. Its broad range of mediums, techniques and processes make textile art a genuinely democratic form of material language. The far-reaching historical and cultural entanglements of textile art stretch back thousands of years. The story of textile arts is, quite simply, the story of human civilisation. Therefore, it has been subject to assimilation and adaptation, economics and politics, power, and the heavy legacy of empire.

This presentation examines the role of memory among members of first-generation Chilean emigrants to Australia and Melbourne; more specifically looking at how they adapt to Australian society while they still remain anchored to their home country in soul and spirit. The analysis will be inserted into a memory studies framework, with Ricoeurian theories primarily drawn from. His reflections on nostalgia, memory and belonging are readily applicable to our focus on citizens who fled their country under difficult circumstances, carrying with them wounds that needed healing. And yet, they eventually managed to carve a new space for themselves in a territory far away from their homeland, where they embarked on a new chapter that would leave them forever changed while at the same time they were able to connect with their Chilean motherland in a different way.

This presentation examines the role of memory among members of first-generation Chilean emigrants to Australia and Melbourne; more specifically looking at how they adapt to Australian society while they still remain anchored to their home country in soul and spirit. The analysis will be inserted into a memory studies framework, with Ricoeurian theories primarily drawn from. His reflections on nostalgia, memory and belonging are readily applicable to our focus on citizens who fled their country under difficult circumstances, carrying with them wounds that needed healing. And yet, they eventually managed to carve a new space for themselves in a territory far away from their homeland, where they embarked on a new chapter that would leave them forever changed while at the same time they were able to connect with their Chilean motherland in a different way.