This project was a family collaboration, exploring the transmission (and loss) of culture through generations and displacement. It comprises a series of poems by my mother, daughter and myself, and records our various impressions of ‘Hungarian-ness’.

The poem was awarded second prize in the Banjo Paterson Poetry Prize in 2013. Soon after this, I was inspired by my work with poet Deb Westbury to turn the poem into more of an artefact, and created an illustrated booklet, that also featured drawings by my son Isaac and daughter Sofie. I then stitched copies of the printed booklet into kézimunka (Hungarian handicraft) felt covers for family and friends. Each cover featured shapes designed by my textile-loving cousin Anna; she’d originally made them as lapel brooches for the family to wear at our Nagymama’s funeral. Read the poem here.