Host perspectives

Arts-based workshop[i]

As part of the broader project on Everyday co-living, in early November 2022 we ran an art-based research workshop, held in the Art House in Wakefield.

Throughout the workshop we aimed to explore hospitality, both conceptually and practically, using arts-based research methods. Four people from three households that welcomed families or individuals from Ukraine were able to join us, Victoria, Sheila, and a couple, Elizabeth and Marcus. We were supported by two artists affiliated with the Wakefield Art House.

Victoria, Sheila, Marcus and Elizabeth had many positive things to share about their experiences of co-living with people they welcomed into their homes. After introducing herself, Elizabeth, for example, shared that the relationship between her, Marcus and Daryna and her 2 children worked really well. In her own words: ‘it has been amazing to have them around… they are independent, which is amazing, they have not owned the space, but they are not frightened to use the space…’. We also heard some funny stories. Sheila, for example, told us how, when she would ask Yana, the young woman staying with her, if they should have a particular meal that evening, most often the answer would be ‘maybe’. Sheila laughed, saying she was not quite sure what to do with that piece of information, or what it really meant. She thought it might have been a ‘Ukrainian thing’. Either way, ‘maybe’ has become a bit of an inside joke and a cause for joint laugher. Now, when her son comes home for a visit and she asks if they should have pizza for dinner, he too says ‘maybe’. We also heard of some challenges that emerge from co-living and co-sharing. Marcus said that while everything did work well, there were small things, the ‘odd niggle’, as he described it, which usually revolved around very mundane things such as emptying bins, clearing away washed dishes, or filling up the electric kettle.

Despite many positive experiences shared by all, towards the end of the day, Elizabeth commented ‘how on earth could anyone think of this scheme? In fact, this scheme made no sense, what they are asking people to do, us to do, is just too much!’. At first this comment seemed a bit puzzling, especially because much of what was shared throughout the day had been positive. Very quickly we realised it made a lot of sense and was unrelated to the experiences of the relationships being positive or negative. Also, one should not conclude from this comment that, if she could go back in time, Elizabeth would have made a different decision about welcoming Daryna and her children into her home. Rather, this comment was suggestive of expectations and complexities embedded in everyday hosting, as well as realisation what it was that ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ alike were asked to do through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. In great part it was this what our research set out to explore.

A scholar Alison Phipps suggests that when people from different backgrounds come together into each other’s lives, what is needed is ‘delicacy’. This need for ‘delicacy’ was manifested throughout our research: those who opened their homes and those who joined them needed to have a particular level of openness, flexible and humble enough also within a very confined intimate and private space, one’s home.

If you would like to learn more about day-to-day hosting stories, or what it was that ‘people were asked to do’, have a look at expectations around co-living ; emotional toll of hosting; generational differences within the same household; comfortable spaces; morals and motives; and navigating differences. Perhaps this may also clarify what Elizabeth meant when she said ‘this scheme made no sense’ and at times it felt ‘just too much’.