Home no.7 (a sample of)

Abstract

“Home” describes an intangible concept. It is the emotional and meaningful relationship between people and their familiar environment. In living conditions of individuation, temporariness and mobility, personal possessions gain utmost importance in the establishment of a sense of “home”. They become material icons of durability and continuity in everyday life which carry references to people, places, the past and, most importantly, to oneself – one’s identity and history. Home No. 7 (a sample of) is a practice-led study of this hypothesis. The project attempts to record and maintain a sample of a domestic interior – once regarded as “home” – created in the North Room on 262 Bethnal Green Road at the time it was about to be dismantled. The sample of ‘home’ is contained within a box. The interior of the box is divided into compartments, each of which holds a different means of registration: casts, cards, photos, samples, drawings and texts. The quasi-scientific way of registration aims at a clear presentation of the information recorded and an objective point of view. Yet, these means of objective recording inadvertently reveal personal systems of reference created by the inhabitant. The text that accompanies and reflects on the project discusses the relationship between an individual and his/her personal possessions drawing from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, history, critical theory and studies of material culture. Project and text attempt to understand the material “at home” constructed by one’s personal possessions and the immaterial “at home” created by their relationship to their owner.