Four Melbourne creatives on the places they call home

Feels like home.

Home is not just where the heart is. It’s a place, a person or a memory that makes you feel safe and welcome, that will shift as you move through life but will always be present. It can be as big as a country or as small as a suitcase, but always with a common thread of love and belonging.

As we approach Christmas, a time of homecoming and time spent with loved ones, we are exploring the concept of home and its many definitions.

This brought us to four creative women and the places they call home.

Beatrice Lewis
Musician
@haikuhands

B: My sense of home has shifted from an external, physical place to the internal in the last 10 years, while I’ve been touring so much. I’ve had to build up a peaceful place inside myself that is safe. It’s somewhere that I can be alone, feeling comfortable in silence and comfortable with the mess inside.

Now, with my new house in Melbourne, I think my sense of home is coming back to the external. After not having had a permanent home for five years, I feel as if my house is like a sanctuary. It can be as simple as being able to leave a mess, a place where you can completely let go.

Aside from the physical and the internal, trying to find peace and home in your relationships and in whatever work you do is important. It all comes back to finding that home inside, finding that peaceful place. If everyone felt a little more at home inside themselves, we would probably have a bit more peace in society.

Jasmin Amma
Model and social worker
@jasmin.amma

J: Growing up, I moved a lot and I always loved it. So home, for me, is so many different spaces. It’s wherever my loved ones are; my friends, my family, my partner. It’s back in the country with all my girlfriends. It’s here in this tiny, cozy old apartment that we love. It’s where I feel most comfortable, where I’m my most vulnerable self, and where I can be my most honest version of me.

Even when I think about home in terms of countries, my dad’s from Ghana so whenever I go back there, that feels like home. I believe you don’t have to have been [to a place] many times for it to feel like it’s home.

I work as a social worker with kids who have had really difficult lives. It’s made me appreciate home. It’s not about what you have and don’t have, but my work has definitely opened my eyes to what my parents have done for me in creating a stable and predictable environment for me to flourish. Not everyone gets that.

Fatuma and Laurinda Ndenzako
Designers
@collectiveclosets

L: The place I feel the most at home is with my sisters, my best friend or my family. We could be anywhere, if I’m with them and I’m in my comfort zone and we are just together, I feel so good. So, I can’t give you a space. Outside of the shop, for me, home is created by the people that I am with. We grew up in a community where Mum would want us to know who our next-door neighbour was.

F: I think having a good space where familiarity is there, that’s home. When you’re around a community of people — especially with a child, and you know that if you were to walk off, someone’s got him — it’s a very comforting feeling. I never have to feel a level of danger.

L: Home is also our store. The North Melbourne community is quite strong and very loyal. We wanted to have a space where we could welcome people with open arms. Where, for anyone walking through the doors, it wasn’t about having to buy something. Creating a memorable experience for them, where they feel really good when they leave, that, for us, is home.

This article was originally published in Fashion Journal 193. You can read it here.