Taking her home to the world

COFA student Lucy Simpson's visual portrayal of her life has won her a spot in a worldwide cultural exchange project, My Home Is Myself.

Through a visual dialogue, Art and Design students from five universities around the world have been using photography to analyse how they define themselves in a rapidly changing world.

After submitting an initial self-portrait, one student from each city (Geneva, Cape Town, Shanghai, Sydney and New York) was chosen to progress to the competition's second stage where they were asked to produce an image a day based around the theme "My Home" and the sub themes of My Roof, My Door, My Window, My Ground, and My Wall.

Lucy is a third-year Bachelor of Design student, majoring in textiles and graphics. She is also an Indigenous Cadet with the School of Design Studies, as well as having previously worked at the UNSW Indigenous Centre Nura Gili.

"To me, the most important aspects of my life, and the qualities that make me who I am, are my family, culture and the place to which I belong or call home," she says. "The images I produced for the first stage represented both my Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage.

"The second stage of the project has been a little bit hectic, but it is exciting getting up in the morning seeing the next challenge, and finding out how other cities have responded to my images and represented their own perspectives, you really feel the connection and interaction. These glimpses of our worlds captured at the same time are so fascinating."

For more information about the program and to view the images from around the world visit the website.

Image caption:My mother is a non-Indigenous Australian woman from saltwater country. My father is an Aboriginal man of the Yuwaalaraay people from freshwater country. This self-portrait represents the connection we have with home and the importance of place and belonging. Our rivers beaches sands soils and lands are me.