Mahindule: Community

This series of the Mahindule residency program is called Existing in Community: Belonging to Each other.

Internal displacement forces us to reckon, in the most heinous of ways, with the reality that home, community and belonging do not always stand still. As humans, we have known this since the beginning of time; we move, relocate, reconfigure and reconnect. Yet, in many instances, this movement is not by choice, but by force.

In the context of the Bulengo displacement camp, this forced movement means that home, community and belonging pull at different strings within us. To know your home spiritually, while being physically absent from it for reasons beyond your control, creates a dynamic that is difficult for those who have not experienced it to fully understand. Yet, within this physical absence, another point of connection emerges, one centred on shared experience. It forces us to think beyond the boundaries through which community is so often defined: cultural groups, work environments, language and the other familiar markers we use to construct belonging.

This is a learning for us all, and it is this dynamic that underpins the depth of these images.