I was born in Sisak, Croatia where I spent my whole childhood apart from the refugee days in different places in Croatia and Slovenia. I clearly remember all the days spent in the basement during shelling; it was an experience of fast growing up and an experience that pushed me towards the fight for the different world. After years of articulating myself through the local theatre performance groups and volunteering at peace camps across the country, at the age of 18 I joined the Centre for Peace Studies. Stories on illegalization and imprisonment of people in Ježevo detention center and images of the remote reception centers for prosecuted refugees who had no chance to be protected due to rigid asylum policies pushed me to think of possibilities of resistance and imagining hospitality.
For years we have been documenting refugee experiences in Croatia; their life stories, journeys, hopes and fears, possibilities... All those years emerged ideas that have been connecting us and eventually created the collective Taste of Home. Taste of Home has a multilayered story for me. It is a story of people, some people, and many people. It is a story of collaboration and solidarity. It is also a story of cooking and culinary passion. It is also a lot more - the story that speaks the language of hospitality, language of freedom, language of giving.
All of us are in search of a home. Today my home is in different places, around the world, on different continents. My home is where the people are, those people that I have connected with through solidarity, through the awareness that this is the world of inequalities. And this world is a constant reminder of what we need to do in order to make it better not only for ourselves but for all of us.
In that world, we cook! We cook the possibilities of the different world. And its taste is heavenly.