Set of photographs #18

Commentary from participant

1. ‘The pasta machine - I grew up with my mother making pasta so I bought a pasta maker here so I could remind myself of my mother and also by making pasta with my son, I could help him to connect to his Italian heritage

2. The second picture is of a Fitness card. These come from our Council [local authority]. You can take the whole family to keep fit activities. In Italy it is very different; it costs maybe 300 euros to join a gym. We can afford to join the activities here.

3. 3,4,5, These pictures show the Union Jack, a gate on the Peace Wall and, on the other side, a mural called ‘The Battle of the Falls’. This is very far away from me. My neighbor is my neighbor so it is weird that there are these divisions in Northern Ireland.

6. This is a picture of the HMRC website [Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs]. I really like this website because everything is in one place; in Italy you have to go to many different buildings, it is very bureaucratic.

7. Here we have a Thank You card. Everybody in Northern Ireland says ‘thank you’ a lot.

8. Here in Northern Ireland there are cards for every occasion, whereas in Italy there is not so much variety, I love this variety.

9. This is a website about childcare. It makes me very happy. There is not much help for childcare in Italy. And I like the fact that all the information is there on one website.

10. I joined a painting class during lockdown and the picture is a collage of paintings we did of Mussenden Temple [a landmark, part of the Downhill estate, built in the eighteenth century] in one of our sessions. I was part of a group and we spent two hours together each week during Lockdown; my two hours.

11. This picture shows a work helmet or hard hat and a jacket used by construction workers. I work in construction and here, it makes me feel good, ‘at home’. There are no jokes about me as a woman. In Italy a boss might say ‘a woman can only ben to 90 degrees.

12. This is the name of a firm. The reason why I took a picture of it is because they gave me an opportunity to practise accounting and grow to where I am now.

12. Here is a shop with ladies’ clothes which are for, larger women. There are many shops with skinny mannequins. Here the mannequins are made for larger sizes and it is not depressing because you can see what larger size clothes might look like.

13. The picture is of a school satchel. I chose this because it symbolizes how different the education system is here. It was a learning curve for me. In Italy there is a set book or textbook for each syllabus. Here, that is not the case. It is quite challenging for me to learn these differences.

14. This is a picture of a plate of gnocchi. Things look complicated but they are not always. We can adapt, and yet be faithful to our own culture.

15. This is lasagne, Northern irish style. But this is not really like Italian lasagna.

16. This is Belfast Metropolitan College. Such places do not really exist in Italy. I did Accounting there and graduated in two years. I really enjoyed the MET. I was able to get a job managing accounts.’

‘Things are strange here. At the beginning it was the accent. When you have a child, you learn that accent.’

Comments from the other participants

Participant A: ’This really resonated with me – the pictures of websites. They give you a sense of empowerment, control. You can do things quickly. In Pakistan this is not the case’. Also the food – the curries we eat here are different from those eaten in Pakistan. In the poor areas there is a limited range of ingredients and they are not always as fresh as they would be here.’

Participant 17: ‘There are similar things here for me too. In relation to food, the Italian Queen went to Poland, to Silesia, so maybe that influences our food, like the dumplings which are a bit like Italian gnocchi.’

Participant 14: 'Potatoes feature in a painting by Van Gogh too – ‘The Potato Pickers’. In the past, the farmeing people put a big pot of potatioes on the table. The man, the family provider always got to go first.’

Tess [facilitator]. Yes, that sounds familiar,. I heard people talking in the country places here about the very same thing. And there is a wonderful poem by our poet, Seamus Heaney, called ‘The Seedcutters’ (After Breughel) and, like Breughel, Heaney focused on the ordinary farming people – sitting out under a hedge in the winter, splitting potatoes. That is how they planted them and also checked that they were not diseased. There was a memory among the people of the rotten potatoes and all the deaths in the Famines of the 1840s.’

Participant A: ‘I agree, food relates to economic circumstances, A country’s famous dishes are often made from the only items and ingredients that people in poverty had. In India and Pakistan they added spices and in Italy spices and herbs for Pizza.

Participant 24: ‘I enjoyed your presentation. I agree that there is respect for women at work here. When I go back to Spain, I am called ‘the Irish one’. It might be an insult. But I feel respected here.

Participant 11: ‘Congratulations for holding your space here.’