About
"Belonging" is a durable feeling that arises between invitation and assertion. In the context of increasing social isolation and homelessness rates, camping crackdowns, the cost of living crisis and attacks on public services, interrogating the complex feeling that is “belonging” registered as a worthwhile endeavor.
At the scale of the individual, belonging can provide the feeling of security and a grounding certainty, motivating continued commitment to a place. “Belonging” is a confidence that there is a place you can return to, and that there is indeed place for one’s self. At the scale of the collective, belonging describes modes of identifying and relating among multiple individuals, motivating both selfish and altruistic care. In connecting to the political body, “belonging” can be a catalyst for both cooperation and competition. “Belonging” offers an interpretation of interests held in common that serve plurality.
Holding the view that individual conceptions of “belonging” have implications on the “collective body”, interrogating these privately held conceptions might also be well served done collectively. The workshop prompt seeks to spark a joint inquiry into our relations to unknown strangers through our connection to the places we inhabit and through which we move in daily cadence. With this workshop we seek to better understand each of our positions to invite and assert “belonging”, giving rise to an interwoven set of promises, assurances, safeguards, and rights.