Events

Where We Belong. An Intimate Dinner curated by Casa Meyaa and Studio Liliane

October 22, 2026

In Indonesia, I’m too white..

In the Netherlands, I’m ‘exotic’.

In Spain, I’m the foreigner.

Sometimes I wonder, is there anywhere I get to be just me?

I was born in the Netherlands, with Dutch, Chinese and Indonesian roots. I’ve lived in South America and Asia, met my Canadian husband in Bali, and now we’re raising our children in Spain. I have friends scattered across the world.

On paper, it sounds wonderfully international. And in many ways, it is. But it also makes the question of “home” surprisingly complicated.

Is home the country where I was born? The language I speak? The house I live in? Or is it being surrounded by people with whom I can be completely myself, without having to explain who I am or where I come from?

I’ve been thinking a lot about belonging lately.

About what it means to belong somewhere when your life has taken you across countries, cultures and different versions of yourself.

And about that strange feeling of being both at home and a little bit of an outsider at the same time.

Sometimes I find belonging in unexpected places. In friendships that feel like family. In conversations with strangers that somehow go much deeper than expected. Or in those moments when someone puts into words something I’ve been feeling for years, but couldn’t quite explain.

That feeling of “Oh, you too?”

How the idea of the dinner was born

When I met Aradhana from Casa Meyaa, we discovered that we were sitting with many of the same questions.

We come from different stories, but there was this immediate sense of recognition. What we call in Dutch “een feest van herkenning”. That wonderful feeling when someone understands what you’re talking about without needing the whole backstory.

And somewhere in those conversations, an idea began to take shape.

What if we brought women together around these questions? Not necessarily to find answers, but simply to explore them together?

And so “Where We Belong” was born.

An intimate dinner for women who live between cultures, countries, or different ideas of home. Women who have left places behind, built lives somewhere new, or perhaps still wonder where their people are.

Over a beautiful three-course dinner at a beautiful villa in Denia, we’ll explore what home, identity, leaving, arriving and belonging mean to each of us.

We don’t want this to be a networking event. You won’t need to introduce yourself through your job title, your accomplishments or what you’re currently working on.

Because, frankly, aren’t we all a little more interesting than that?

There will be gentle conversation prompts, but no expectation to share anything you’re not comfortable sharing.

No phones at the table. No pressure to perform or be interesting.

Just good food, honest conversations, and the possibility of finding common ground with women whose lives might look very different from yours.

Why this matters to me

In my photography, I’ve always been drawn to the connections between people.

The little gestures between couples. The way a mother looks at her child. The small, almost invisible ways we show each other love and care.

And while I love photographing those connections, I’ve realised that what I enjoy just as much is helping create the space where they can happen.

I suppose Where We Belong is an extension of that.

A chance to bring people together, slow down a little, and have the kind of conversations that don’t always happen in everyday life.

I don’t know if one evening around a dinner table can answer the question of where we belong. Probably not.

But I do think something meaningful can happen when we sit down with people we don’t know, put our phones away, and become genuinely curious about each other’s stories.

Perhaps belonging doesn’t always begin with finding the right place.

Perhaps sometimes it begins with finding a little recognition in someone else.

And if any of this resonates with you, I’d love for you to join us.

You don’t need to know anyone beforehand. You don’t need to arrive with an extraordinary story. And you certainly don’t need to have figured out where you belong.

There’s a place for you at the table.