Foreign Return: On art and inhabitation

by Neha Kale

How do you inhabit spaces that were never built for you? Can you find home somewhere you were never supposed to belong? As a child, Neha Kale migrated from India to the outer reaches of Perth, an ancestral house, a colonial house in Goa, lingering in her memory. It sparked a life of global movement and flux. Mixing personal narrative with art and cultural criticism, Foreign Return explores the myth of the suburbs, colonial inheritances, what it means to live on stolen land, and the changing ways we will need to conceive of homes and their ownership. By drawing on the works of artists such as Dayanita Singh, Ana Mendieta, Tracey Emin, Brett Whiteley and Danie Mellor, she overturns the legacies of belonging that entrap us and searches for a language of home that can speak to a fractured world.

228 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2026

Reviews

[fred]

i was very lucky to receive an advanced reader copy of this book from NewSouth!!

this was a really interesting book, not what i usually read but i’m glad i decided to give it a go. it was a fascinating perspective of life and in particular life in australia, very different from my own. i also really enjoyed reading about all the various artists that were mentioned, even as someone who knows pretty much nothing about art. cool book!!!!

[Littlerhymes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kale uses a combination of memoir and art criticism to talk about her own journey migrating to Australia from India in the 90s, and a broader story about what home means. Quite beautifully written.