Stitching in Place: Migration, Memory and Habitual Practices

Although struggles with isolation, language and cultural barriers are evident in most migration stories, in this paper I will consider the way plain sewing as a creative and habitual practice can be a means of physically and memorially re-experiencing home even though a person is displaced. This paper combines with a picture narrative to discuss the experience of displacement, home and belonging as observed twice over in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and then Australia. It is a story in relation to my maternal grandmother, Catterina Rossetti, an Italian immigrant to both countries. From a visual arts perspective, I investigate the way in which plain sewing sustained my grandmother through the various transitions associated with multiple migrations. When discussing displacement in the migration experience, Edward S Casey’s concept of Habitual Body Memory is applied. Although marginal and resistant to narrative, Habitual Body Memory is sustaining in its nature, as habitual actions constitute everyday activities and functions central to belonging. I am interested in my memories of the farm homestead in Zimbabwe, recollected through my grandmother’s sewing, a habitual practice that she has carried over to Australia. Catterina’s ability to continue to perform these habitual actions within the home space has underpinned her sense of belonging and in addition influenced my modes of remembering home – from Italy to Zimbabwe to Australia.