In reflection on my recent immigration experiences, I realised that margins are often (but not always) where we choose to be. I realise that my position of being an immigrant to Australia is a choice to live within a margin. This position of living within the margin I experience as complex, ambiguous, and blurred, because my physical appearance is not removed from the more dominant Anglo-Australian culture, but my sense of belonging and identity are still firmly tied to Africa and Namibia, where I was born. As an immigrant to Australia, walking down the mixed crowds of Rundle Mall in Adelaide still fills me with a powerful sense of being an outsider. Over the past six years, frequent strong reactions to my foreign accent have only reinforced these feelings.

My more recent decision to live and work in Ceduna, a regional town on the West Coast of South Australia, is also a choice to live within a geographical margin. Although I came to experience living ‘in the sticks’ in Australia, which is a local expression for living in isolated or remote places, remote living is not altogether a foreign experience. In 2008 – 2009, I also worked in remote locations in northern Namibia. The connection between Namibia and Australia is that in both cases, I was drawn to these remote places because I worked with regionally based artists who live marginalised lives due to geographic isolation and economic disadvantage.

What draws me to, and where are my margins? I perceive margins as spaces where I can challenge and work on the impossible through discovering infinite possibilities. Margins allow me to rebel against the impossible. In these spaces, I resist becoming an unrecognisable part of the mainstream, as I can continue to find creativity in both myself and others. In the margin, I can resist losing my identity.

Answering the question ‘where is my margin’ is more difficult because a friend recently commented that she admires the way I don’t see borders and boundaries as hindrances or limitations, but prefer to think and plan beyond them. This does not mean that I think from the centre’s position, but rather that I negotiate through and around centres and other borders. One of my academic mentors and philosophical uncle often reminded me in the past that only those who have experienced ‘the centre’ have choices about their margins. Is this why I continue to find myself within margins – existing, living and working amongst the marginalised? I lived through hybrid experiences of being part of the centre and the margin, and I believe it has shaped my affinity for the margin. This is certainly a position I want to explore in the Margin-to-Margin research project, both as an artist and as a researcher.

The image is an illustrated photograph of a sunset in Ceduna.

By Melanie Sarantou