The material will be compiled in a film essay by Azadeh Fatehrad, where audiences will encounter the migrant’s images, sounds and associations to home and their thoughts on the everyday practices of home making. Apart from being co-producers of a film, the interviewed migrants will also contribute to a publication and a conference. The study aims to provide basis for analytical research on some of the key issues around migration- and integration policy.

Azadeh Fatehrad explains how her work captures a feeling of inbetweenness, the duality of nationality creating displacement within each culture. “Home becomes the portable memory storage in phones and databases, this mobile home forms a feeling of belonging to somewhere. We’re attempting to trace the mobile elements that create the feeling of home or belonging that can give you the security that you belong, even though you are physically far from that version of home.”

As part of the research project, artist Eva Hållsten was commissioned to lead four workshops in May and June 2022 in her home - a large old farmhouse with a lush garden in Stockvike Öja on southern Gotland. She invited about 15 people who had migrated to Sweden from Afghanistan and Syria in 2015-16. She was inspired by the fact that many of them wanted to preserve the flavours of their home country's cuisine for cooking in their new country. Using their mobile phones, the group gathered inspiration and information from relatives and friends to build a wood-fired oven to bake traditional bread, cook and eat together. All the workshops were filmed by cinematographer Stefan Kullänger, who captured memories and discussions about the tastes and smells of home.

Azadeh Fatehrad: - The series of aesthetic workshops on Gotland provided a unique platform for sharing stories and experiences and enabled a rich exchange of perspectives on the theme of migration and belonging. Up close, I was able to witness how mobile technology is woven into the lives of migrants and serves as both a symbolic and practical tool to maintain contact with distant homelands. The insights from these discussions were invaluable and directly influenced the development of the documentary film and other parts of the exhibition.