WHEREING: A Podcast about Belonging and Design

A seventh generation descendent of family who lived in Sefad, Israel, the city where mystical scholars of the Kabbalah found refuge in the 16th Century; Nili Portugali is an architect, filmmaker and author. We discuss her film “And the Alley She Whitewashed in Light Blue”, a stunning, poetic, visual masterpiece of the seasonal rituals in her Grandmother Rivka’s hotel, at the end of an alley in that old city. The film is one of her many works which seek to find a universal answer to the question “What is the basis of all those places in which one feels at home, and wants to return to, again and again?”

Sulaiman Khatib grew up in a small Palestinian village, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. At the age of 14, he and his friend received long jail sentences for stabbing and injuring two Israeli soldiers. In the jail library he studied the history of the Jewish people, and began to understand that there were equally compelling narratives to both sides. A reconstructed perspective of non-violence, further impacted by hunger strikes in jail, seeded his future dedication to peace and reconciliation work. In 2005 he cofounded the Combatants for Peace, an organization created by Palestinian and Israeli former fighters and victims of violence. Combatants for Peace is modeled on humanistic values of empathy, forgiveness and mutual respect for a future of peace on the sacred homeland that both Palestinians and Israelis love, fighting not each other - but the common enemy of hatred and fear. Nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, his transformative journey and visionary optimism is rooted in a deep love of the land, ancient wisdom, and spirituality.

Born in Germany, post World War II, as part of the generation with the ‘grace of late births’, Dagmar Richter describes the impact of that context and time on her work, identity and places she has since lived. She talks about engagement and discourse in her work as an architect and educator, as the necessary antithesis of the wall of silence she experienced when young. Her work deconstructs, exposes and reveals what is often uncomfortable, or what she calls ‘not smooth’.

KIM JORGENSEN GANE is a midwestern mom, a speaker, author and activist community leader; a democrat, running for State Senate in Michigan’s District 20. For this candidacy, she leads with an approach of ‘care’, informed by her deep connection and understanding of the place she has lived most of her life and its complex politics. She brings her ‘every mom’ passion to issues of class, gender and race in her still deeply segregated state, helping the public connect to their values, stories and lived experiences with how they vote.

Boedi Widjaja is a prolific, international artist whose work is deeply tied to his personal experience of an itinerant childhood in Southeast Asia. Impacted by the region’s complicated entangled histories, his poetic art explores themes of diaspora, memory, cultural hybridity, identity and space.

Men’s Sheds, an international phenomenon, with thousands of clubs worldwide, are mainly ‘clubs for older guys’. They provide a place for older men to meet, build friendships and projects, pursue their interests, learn new things, and discuss health issues. In these places, there is a comfort level to talk while working “Shoulder to Shoulder”. Phil Johnson is the Managing Director of the US Men’s Sheds, the one who originally organized, and currently helps to grow the organization. In this episode we hear from him about the transformative effect Men's Sheds have had on retired and elder men's lives.

Imagine a radical school curriculum where 4 and 5 year old children are required to visit the homes of every student in the class. I speak with Sarah Leibowits, a lower school educator at the Manhattan Country School in New York, who has taken her class on these very home visits for 20 years. Established as a 'private school with a public mission’, lessons at the school from kindergarten through 8th grade, are built on the celebration of unique difference.

In this episode, Haya Haddad, a young, driven woman, a Christian, Palestinian, Israeli citizen, delves into her personal family and communal, historical narrative of displacement, and her multiple minority identities, all which inspire her social, humanitarian and political work. She talks about the hope for integration by understanding the collective human story. This interview was done prior to the beginning of the war in Ukraine. While the discussion focuses on the displacement experience of the Palestinians, some of the themes, although different in detail, context and complexity, correlate with the current forced evacuation of Ukrainian citizens. I thought about this a lot while I prepared the episode to air.

This is the FInal Episode of Season 1! To all listeners, THANK YOU! From starting this naive experiment, during the pandemic, from my home, it amazes me that I have listeners all over the United States and the world. Wow! I am taking a break over the summer, and will return in September. This episode gives you some short Season 1 highlight clips, and ‘behind the scenes’ info about the Whereing Podcast. It is part of a recent talk about the podcast I was invited to give to the Pratt Institute School of Design, Department of Interior Design, INT Talks. Until we meet again in September, have a wonderful summer!

I speak with Karen Kubey, who is an urbanist and ‘houser’ with an enduring passion and commitment to affordable housing as the generative factor in social equity and justice. We speak about the ways to engage residents in the decisions for the design of their homes, and the need to push for generous, transformative policies, because housing is a human right.

‘Mother Tongue’. What does it mean? Is it the spoken language of home, the language of parents, ancestors, and country of origin? Is the language of place, a rooted connection to heritage, tradition, people, music, rituals, religion? The DNA of a particular ethnic experience? ‘Mother Tongue’ merges the past and present, a sometimes invisible gift of identity, particularly when displaced in another land. Felema Yemaneberhan grew up in Los Angeles, but throughout her childhood she was brought back to another home, in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, a country traumatized by Italian colonization and Civil War. In the US, before the age of 5, she only spoke Tigrinya, the language of her ancestral home, a place where her parents still anticipate returning.

Loukia Tsafoulia is the cofounder of PLB Architectural Design and Research Studio, and teaches at the College of Architecture and the Built Environment, at Thomas Jefferson University, where she has cofounded the Synesthetic Research and Design Lab. We speak about the book she has edited, titled ‘Transient Spaces’, and her devotion to exploring belonging for migrant and refugee populations. Her other works examine the connections between design, technology and science, specifically the human body and its interactions with the objects and place. One project we speak about is now being exhibited at the the Venice Biennale.

As a child, Lori felt most at home sitting and napping under her mother’s baby grand piano. She says, when her mother played, ‘the notes rained down on me, and became a part of my flesh’. A multi-talented force herself, Lori experienced a period of homelessness, which has shaped her creative process. When Lori speaks about home, she speaks about the ‘molten lava of truth’, rather than rigid structure. Home, in the most positive and present sense, is not ‘Pleasantville’. We speak about finding and building home.

Sofia Kondylia is an award-winning choreographer, performer and architect. Motivated by the simple truth, that ‘movement creates space’, her work, through dance, performance, physical theatre and film, explores intersections between choreography and architecture, and its impact on emotional self transformation.

Clement Luk Laurencio is a storyteller and master artisan of pencil drawings. His surreal, poetic drawings capture the dreams, inventions, memories and flashbacks of places he has lived, visited and cherished. He calls them ‘spatial fictions’. He says they are an invitation for pause, and wandering, in its timeless labyrinth. He probes the question ‘how is the dwelling a place of reverie and protection for the dreamer?’ His work, which has won numerous awards, depicts themes of the pandemic; loss of connection, forced enclosure, and fantasies of the future and past. When I came across his work, I was struck by the depth of his imagination and skill. And, he is only just beginning.

It is one year into the pandemic. Colleges closed their doors in March of 2020. Students weighed their decisions about how and where they would continue to learn. Where are our students now? What are the impacts, and unexpected lessons that they have learned? We speak with 3 students who all have different stories. Emma Bowers has had a nomadic experience. Alex Durham went home to live with family. Irene Pan is a Chinese international student, who decided to remain in the USA and study online.

I speak with CHRYSTIE SHERMAN, a photographer who documents the loss and disappearance of Jewish communities. Coinciding with the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday, her art captures themes of exodus, migration, nomadic wandering, and the longing for a homeland .... universal questions, very much alive today.

She thought she was nomad. New to to this town, she experienced serendipitous events, meetings with eccentric creatives, and a deep curiosity about the land. We hear how it became home, in a beloved, magical summer camp, once called the ‘Fried Egg'. It is a story of belonging to earth, place and self; through anchoring, listening, learning, and rebuilding with friends.

What does it mean to live on the edge? Jerry Roback is most comfortable describing himself as a wild man, a humanitarian adventurer, a self appointed and fearless, grass roots citizen of compassionate service. He seeks to create an ‘oasis’ - the calm, magic, rescue, and sanctuary, where need reveals itself in spontaneous encounters. That is his home.

What might resolve the challenges of sheltering the homeless? Embedded into the Los Angeles County Development Authority, Kishani De Silva envisions a pilot scheme to test a smarter, faster, cheaper methodology. Bridging government, design, technology, and community resistance, she speaks, with hope, to the urgent need for alignment, partnership and the intangible meaning of community and belonging.