Statement
What do you call home? What defines a home? These are the questions that have surrounded my practice this year. Typically, a home is defined as the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or a household. I began to explore the questions surrounding the concept of home and how this can vary for people. My interest in this subject has been heavily influenced by my time growing up in Berlin and the time that I have spent away from home. Berlin has one of the highest homeless populations in Germany and the more you travel around the city the more noticeable this issue becomes. Over ten thousand homeless people have become a part of the city making them invisible to the society around them. They become overlooked and are often labelled with the typical stereotypes surrounding homelessness. My interest in this subject began when I was back in Berlin, and it struck me how prevalent the surge in homelessness has become. It made me aware that revisiting a place when you haven’t been there for a while can change your perception of things and make you more aware of your surroundings.
The work began by focussing on homeless individuals captured in photographs from around Berlin and turning these individuals into sketches to maintain their anonymity. For the first exhibition ‘Home I’ one of these figures was printed onto a transparent curtain using screen-printing. The use of a transparent curtain hung between two walls focussed on the presence and the absence of the printed figure by creating a transparent divide within the room. Evolving from that ‘Home II’ was created using multiple screen-printed figures in different sizes and colours. This piece drew more attention to the figures themselves, making the individuals depicted the focal point of this piece. ‘Home II’ focuses on highlighting the people that society tends to overlook by confronting the viewer with screen prints of these individuals. Both ‘Left Behind’ and ‘Left Behind in Berlin’ have been continuations of these previous works. However, these pieces combine the figures with photographs of places around Berlin. The figures become detached from the places that they are often associated with. The photographs that are used for these pieces are pictures taken around ‘Zoologischer Garten’ and ‘Alexander Platz’ in Berlin which are both commonly associated with homelessness and poverty. These photographs are transferred onto canvas using photo transfer paper to give the illusion of being painted. The figures are printed on a small scale on a dirty canvas to encourage to viewer to linger and decipher what these sketches represent. These pieces focus more on the question of what makes a home a home? Does it have to be four walls for it to be a home? Can a place that is not meant to be inhibited be someone’s home? And how do these individuals shape these places? Or do these places shape the people? By removing the people from these places, the question arises of whether the people and the places can be viewed separately or whether they are intrinsically linked?
An artist who has been influential throughout my work this year is Jana Sophia Nolle, who mainly focuses on how homelessness is often overlooked and forgotten by people. She creates homeless shelters in people’s living rooms in San Francisco and Berlin by using objects she has found on the street. She focuses on the ‘larger phenomena of socio-political changes, housing shortages, exclusion and gentrification going far beyond San Francisco.”. Her work has deepened my interest in this topic as I find her practice very meaningful and important. Another major influence for me has been the Community project ‘Ob(D)acht – My Home is my Castle’ which was run by the artist Kerstin Schulz. For this exhibition thousands of plastic bottles were collected and formed into a structure resembling a home. This was done to signify that in many European countries collecting these plastic bottles is a way for homeless people to survive as each plastic bottle, when returned to a supermarket has a value of 25 cents. This often is the only income for people living on the street. This work is highly important to raise awareness and signifies the importance of helping homeless individuals.
Both referenced artists share a common perspective with my practice. While their approaches may vary, they focus on highlighting the intricate relationship between a place and an individual. Through my work, I aim to prompt viewer's awareness and attentiveness towards visibility and invisibility. The work aims to elicit a deeper contemplation on the idea of belonging and alienation within a given space by encouraging viewers to reflect on the sense of belonging or detachment and the interplay of individuals and their environment.