Inherited nostalgia

Germany – Lufthansa has created a new advert that explores generational homesickness in young people.

• Heimweh is the German term for a longing for home
• The ad explores the idea of identity in an increasingly connected world where people’s sense of who they are is becoming more fluid

Volcano of our Childhood features two Danish designers, Satoru and Kiyoshi Inoue, who grew up in Copenhagen but have Japanese parents. The part-animated film shows the brothers visiting a volcano in Kagoshima, Japan, which had played an integral part in their father’s bedtime stories but which they had not previously visited.

This sense of inherited nostalgia for a place previously unknown physically taps into the idea of our identities being constructed from different facets of our lives rather than being something we are born with. The #inspiredby homesickness campaign draws on melancholy, an emotion rarely explored by the travel industry.

‘We hope that the complex concepts of home and homesickness will be discussed, and that everyone can find their own definition of the terms so they can pursue their own personal experiences,’ said Brian Bray, head of creation at digital agency Neuland Herzer, which made the film.