The Interstitial Language and Transnational Experience

Abstract

In this essay I argue that the idea of inhabiting, and of human individuality as the house of being, are fruitful ideas if located in a space defined by movement, porosity, interstitiality, and in an urban and architectural paradigm which is based on openness and inclusiveness. Transnational experiences and localities can be, to this end, extremely instructive. It is essential to articulate the notion of dwelling within an urban context in which building is the result of complex cultural and social interactions, which are characterised not only by the negotiation of space and materials but also, and more importantly, by a range of symbolic values. The symbolism that I refer to here is the product of mnemonic and emotional experiences marked by time and space, which in the case of the migratory and transnational experiences is arrived at through a delicate negotiation of the past and the present, and the ‘here’ (the current locality) and the ‘there’ (the native locality). The dwelling that I speak of is, therefore, a double dwelling divided between the present at-hand and the remembered past, and as such it inhabits a space, which is both interstitial and liminal, simultaneously in and out-of-place. I have chosen the Italian Forum in Sydney as a working sample of the place-out-of-place